I'd say that yes it is feasible, but probably not desirable for most. I have my doubts that lots of people do it. Having done a couple really popular routes, I have camped with a lot of other bike tourists and have yet to see anyone whip out a cast iron skillet.

There are two questions in the OP and they appear to have been answered. Yes, some cyclists carry cast iron cookware on tour. And yes, they're crazy . (Isn't it fun to hear a bunch of crazy touring cyclists calling a subset of the group crazy?)

While I mentioned earlier that my wife and I have been cooking with the same set of bare aluminum pans for the past 45 years, I should also mention that these particular pans aren't made any more. If we were buying new now, we'd probably buy anodized aluminum. Our tandem touring kit, including rack, panniers, pump, bike parts and tools, and everything necessary for very comfortable camp touring in temps down to about 45° and raining, weighs 43 lbs. We certainly wouldn't want it any heavier!

Cast iron pans come in a wide range of sizes and you don't have to be packing a #8... I have a #2 cast iron pan that will cook a meal for one, it weighs about a pound and can handle the heat of a campfire as well as a stove and can double as a hammer to pound tent stakes and serve as a defensive tool against rabid squirrels.

I use cast iron at home and when I camp by car and no-one will ever convince me that there is a better choice than this for most cooking... over a gas stove the heat distribution is perfect and well seasoned cast iron beats teflon coated pans every single time.

I always carry 2 cast iron skillets when touring on my Madone 7.9.

I use aluminum. I was being sarcastic in response to the claim that the fuel requirements are determined solely by the need to heat the food, not the cooking vessel.

I do fine with aluminum, and I cook meals as opposed to simply heating stuff out of can.

Welcome back - as usual you have absolutely nothing constructive to offer - just your opinion of someone elses opinion. Thanks - but I really don't care about your opinion of my opinion.

PS: And now I have NINE!

On my last tour, I carried only one small Titanium cooking pot and one Titanium spoon with a long handle for all of my cooking needs.

And rode a heavy steel frame with heavy duty rims. It is a question of priorities.

Sorry. I missed that. On the other hand, isn't it interesting that the metal that does transmit more heat to the food...aka aluminum...is the one that is being maligned? Or that those of us who cook on aluminum can't cook? I made a damn fine green chili last night and I don't own any cast iron...at home or on the road.

A good cook can do marvelous things with minimal tools and some foods are better suited for steel / aluminium than cast so we have both as well as a good collection of Pyrex which is not travel friendly.

So actually what's being discussed is all a question of priorities and personal preferences. I personally just happen to NOT bring what's typically marketed to the camping crowd. Instead I bring cooking items straight out of my kitchen. Which can mean cast iron, or stainless steel with a laminated copper core base, or single ply stainless steel storage containers. Although you personally may not have 5in pots and frying pans as part of your kitchen - I do. I've also yet to see ANY manufacturer of kitchen cookware that recomends using any grade cookware over anything but low or medium heat, or any recognized nutritional site that recommends cooking ANY food over high heat. So my own choices at home and on the road reflect that. If you want to do something different - its a free country. Or at least I thought so before hearing some of the narrow minded viewpoints some posters want to insist everyone should live by.

Some people take absolutely no cooking equipment - that's a personal choice. People tour for different reasons and with different expectations. Lots of people apparently consider personal hygene unimportant on a tour. I don't care. I don't have to cycle with them.

I do travel ocassionally with my sweetie, who has diabeties type 2 and has to follow a fairly strict diet. One I'm more than willing to accomadate - in spite of the fact that it dictates not only whats on the menu, but quantity and frequency as well. And both of us enjoy food thats well prepared and well presented. So if one small cast iron paella dish causes this much of an uproar - I guess some people would really freak if I mention that on ocassion I've also packed heavy crystal glasses, and always bring the same SS silverware used at the house.

So yeah - maybe your stove is hotter than my stove, and maybe your pot is lighter than my pot, and maybe your bike is faster than my bike. I really don't care. Funny - before getting involved in this thread - I was under the impression that bicycle touring and life in general was about having fun - and amazingly - none of that 'hotter', 'lighter', 'faster' stuff was getting in my way. And it still isn't.

But I am starting to understand why so many people apparently tour solo. They're obviously so overloaded with their own emotional obcessions that there's absolutely no space for anyone else.

I don't disagree. Making do with the minimum is what bicycle touring is all about. If we took everything we would possibly need, we'd be driving RVs

Yawn. Why are you complaining about other people's opinions?

.

This is absolutely correct.

I've seen several folks carrying guitars. I've also seen folks with a banjo, a mandolin, lots of dogs, chairs, huge tents, an ax, and an assortment of other "non-traditional" items. I've been following a guy on CGOAB who must be carrying 200 pounds of "stuff." https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?...c_id=8022&v=Gr

Granted, he is not your typical bike tourist. The point is: there are a lot of ways to do things, and the OP asked for opinions, not a debate. However, good lively discussions done in a respectful manner adds interest to a thread.

This may be traditional. We met these 2 guys again a couple of days after this picture was taken. One of them had a new cast on his lower arm. Cause and effect?



I once saw a young first-time bike tourer whip out a hefty mallet he used to drive in his tent stakes. If he had a small cast iron pan instead of a mallet, it could have served duel duty (just kidding ) He started to see the possibilities when we picked up a nearby rock and pounded our stakes in. That's when he "fessed up" and told us it was his first tour.

https://www.wasserstrom.com/restaurant-supplies-equipment/Product_724852?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={keyword**&kwid=productads-sku^724852-adtype^PLA-adid^11939914844

Of course not. Please read the post. I didn't say it was "the" way to go, I said it was "a" good investment. There are dozens of great options, many of which were stated in this thread. I only claim that cast-iron works well for me, and that it's a valid option.

The biggest frustration I run into on tour is people telling me I'm "doing it wrong" - I am definitely not telling anyone how they "should" tour. Coolest guy I ever ran into touring was this kid from Illinois I met in the middle of Nebraska, riding a mountain bike to California with what looked like a junior steamer trunk strapped to the rear rack, everything shoved inside without a care in the world. He was obviously doing it wrong, and having the time of his life.

I don't know, is it? From my perspective, that's not the point - the point is being able to cook my food without burning it, and to be able to walk away from the stove for 30 seconds without worrying it will char. Also, the mass of the pan turns the blowtorch of the MSR Whisperlite into something more approaching the "simmer" of an isobutane stove. I wanted to use something other than canister fuel since the canisters generally can't be recycled. And I don't personally care so much about the extra fuel use because I carry 2 MSR fuel bottles and am rarely more than a day or two away from a fuel source. Most of the meals I choose to prepare require more than 5 minutes to cook (rice, pasta, etc), and my stove has enough BTUs that the extra 2 minutes to heat the cast-iron isn't so much of an issue - plus my eggs & bacon cook better in the morning.

It's not for everyone - I'd say the vast majority of touring folk aren't going to carry the load I bring on my tours, and that's ok. Just saying that minimizing weight and fuel use isn't the end-all and be-all for everybody.

A lot of people can't - it's just another item. An 8" skillet is 3.5 pounds. The laptop I took on tour (a netbook) weighed about the same, and my sleeping bag and tent *both* outweigh the skillet. A week into the tour, I'd lost more weight from my middle than the cast-iron weighed, despite eating 5,000 calories a day.

There are good reasons to use cast iron. There are good reasons NOT to use cast iron.

I am crazy. On one extended tour, I had 4 loaded Ortliebs and a handlebar bag. My gear included a Windows Netbook, a MacBook (the 4 lb. 13"), a 9" cast iron skillet, and a soft-sided cooler with 5-7lbs of ice so I could eat butter, eggs, bacon, ground beef, and other perishables. I also have heavy-duty rims and puncture-resistant tires AND tubes. Bike weight: 40 lbs, gear weight: about 85 pounds.

I lost 33 pounds while riding on that tour, and after getting out of the mountains and onto the flat plain of Nebraska (Platte River valley) the extra weight didn't bother me at all.

I *did* manage to break the Kona Sutra frame, however, and had to get a new bike.

tldr - Yes, you can ride with cast iron. You can ride with basically everything, if you want to. Figure out your priorities, find the equipment with meets them, don't be afraid to experiment, and ignore everyone who tells you you're doing it wrong. :-)

I did read your post. I even quoted it. When you something like "If you want a *meal*", I interpret it as you telling me that I can't cook a *meal* unless I do it the way you do. Yes, your option is valid but then so is mine. If you would have said 'If I want to cook a *meal*', I might not have had a problem with it but you were implying that if the rest of us don't do it your way we are "doing it wrong".

I can cook my food over a MSR Whisperlite or a butane stove without burning it. It just takes some practice. The Whisperlite has finer control than off and 'blow torch'.

Using cast iron does take more fuel. While it may not be a problem for you, I've been in situations where I can't necessarily get extra fuel every couple of days.

I'm sorry, but that seems particularly excessive. Can't both of those computers dual boot, if you really feel the need for two operating systems?

"Spokebreaker" indeed.

cyccommute,

Respectfully, you're misinterpreting my posts. (I'll acknowledge they may also be worded badly) It's fine that your solutions work for you. They don't work for me, which is why I shared my opinion. I stick my my original contention - I said "If you want a *meal*, then cast-iron is a good investment for the road". I can understand why you would infer I was being exclusive, but I didn't imply it. I said "a good investment", not "the only investment".


fuzz2050,

I had an issue with my Garmin at the time which required a Windows machine (not a VM) and I was in Missoula when I bought the netbook. I could have shipped one of them back, but as it turned out, later in the tour I ended up frequently using both systems. I wouldn't do the same now, and I plan to upgrade to a less weighty Macbook later this year.

njkayaker,

The name comes from when I started riding, at 256 pounds. I broke 11 spokes on the rear wheel over a 6-month period - gave me a lot of maintenance experience. I switched to hand-built 36-spoke wheels and haven't broken a spoke since. Now I crack rims.

I've got a small cast iron pan and a small stainless pot that I use for pretty much everything. The pan doubles as a hammer/nutcracker/paperweight, and the stainless pot I mostly use for cooking rice.

The weight really isn't that big a deal for me, it's not like I'm so horribly out of shape that a couple extra pounds is gonna kill me. If someone wants to use whatever cookware, that's fine, I've seen people backpacking with all kinds of weird things.

It was worded not-so-well. You may not have intended the implication but the implication exists regardless (many people are going to read it the way cyccommute did).

Your phrase is implying that "cast-iron" is necessary (a requirement). Using "only" would mean that you don't need anything else (which would be absurd anyway since good ingredients are also probably required).

It was just funny. You do carry more weight than most people are likely to be happy carrying.