For this trip, we put a lot of thought into our gear. Taking into account the lack of resources available along the route, we needed our equipment to be bullet proof, lightweight, and if possible, serve more than one duty. This is what led us to the Solo Stove.

The Solo Stove is a compact, wood burning stove. We knew that this would be a good choice for our ride as we would be camping in forests throughout the entire route, where sticks and twigs we would be plentiful.  Since we could pull up to any camp and quickly find enough sticks to cook with, we were able to forgo packing fuel canisters, saving precious space and weight.  The stove itself was very easy to use, and we quickly discovered a few techniques to help get the fire started in various conditions. In good conditions a small piece of toilet paper, balled up and placed at the bottom, was all that was needed to get smalls sticks going. When it was raining or wet, we would use solid fuel cubes to help aid this process. We also traveled with a small bag of dry twigs just in case. 

Another great feature was that it came with a .9 L cook pot, which doubled as our eating vessels. The two pieces nest together making it compact and easy to pack. There was virtually nothing that mechanically could go wrong, since the stove has zero moving parts. That combined, with the abundant source of fuel, made us confident in choosing this piece of gear.

However unlike gas stoves, the Solo Stove did need to be tended. While this may seem like a hassle on paper, there was something soothing and meditative about feeding the fire. It was not only fun, but also something to look forward to doing after a long day on the trail. We were also able to use the embers from the stove to help start a larger campfire after dinner, which was clutch on many cold and damp nights.

In the end, the  Stove ended up working perfectly throughout the trip. There was never a worry that we wouldn’t be eating a hot and delicious meal after riding our bikes all day. The Solo Stove is awesome and will always be in our bike-camping bags.