A complete, functional, durable and inexpensive camp kitchen in just 265 grams

Making your pack, or saddlebag lighter is not always about departing with hard earned cash. With a combination of items l already owned I now have what I would consider an ideal, durable yet ultra-light cookset. No individual item cost more than NZD$12.00 although I have owned most it for some years assembled in different and heavier configurations. This setup has neither expensive titanium nor any gimmicky plastic components.

 

It may well be possible to get this to sub-250g. It should be possible to save at least another 10g on a lighter lid - the Milo tin was surprisingly thick and durable.

 

My ultralight, yet fully functional and durable cooking setup:

 

Item	Brand	My scales
1 litre anodised aluminium billy	Old and has no labels	117g
Plastic smiley mug	Generic MIC from the Red Shed	30g
Pot lid	DIY (from large Milo tin)	30g
Ghetto Beer Can Stove	DIY (from two aluminium beer cans)	11g
No6 wire pot stand	DIY (some orange paint to prevent losing in grass etc)	13g
Fire-steels	Light My Fire	26g
Anodised aluminium spoon	Sea to Summit	14g
Knife	Victorinox (+ inner tube sheath)	18g + 8g
Total	weighed together (2g lighter due rounding)	265g

 

 

The 1 litre billy came with a second billy of soup bowl dimensions that could be stacked above it to provide a fuel efficient lid. I did not find the dimensions of that billy useful, and it made a terrible mug. From the base of a Milo tin, some plastic tubing and some wire came the 30g lid. Amazingly, the rim from the tin lid fits perfectly around the edge of the billy. I think It should be possible to make an equivalent lid for less than 20g if only I could find the right bits… With the lid removed, you can see the mug, pot-stand, ghetto stove and fire steels contained within. With the fire steels I do not have to worry about wet matches, or broken cigarette lighter flints ever again.. yay! To complete the kit, the cutlery. A Sea-to-Summit spoon and a Victorinox steak knife that will easily slice through vegetables, cable-ties or anything else I may need a knife for.

 

 

To think I used to carry a very good, but unfortunately heavy MSR Billy set that was 379g without cutlery, cooker, lighting equipment or a mug!! The lid/frypan 135g and pot-lifter 45g made the whole set if carried a whopping 559g!!

GSI Halulite Minimalist Ultralight Cookset Review

As I look forward to Kiwi Brevet, I have been tweaking and lightening my kit for both Bikepacking and Tramping applications.

Unfortunately while this cookset has some excellent ideas, it didn’t quite reach my expectations.

 

The minimalist set is designed to operate as a billy by being made of cooking grade anodized aluminium, with the addition of a neoprene sleeve and a sipper lid to turn it into a mug. It also comes with a foldable spork (or foon?) and is designed to be able to enclose a small butane burner with a 110g canister as a single tight cooking package.

 

 

The weigh-in according to the manufacturer, and my independent but not certified as calibrated scales:

 

Item	Claimed	My scales
600ml billy	92g	100g
Sipper lid	42g	44g
Neoprene sleeve	20g	24g
Silicone pot gripper	14g	12g
Spork/Foon	9g	9g
	177g	189g

 

What I like:

• Single integrated and adaptable package
• Large mug is good for social cups of tea
• Neoprene sleeve works well (and also reduces rattling when placed inside other items)
• Fairly inexpensive
• The silicone pot gripper is very functional and could be used for other hot items too – e.g. move pot stands or other peoples pots.

What I didn’t like:

• Because the anodised aluminium stays hotter than the contents, without the sipper lid it is too hot for my lips
• While the sipper may keep a drink hot for longer, it doesn’t have the same ambience of a cup of billy tea in the outdoors
• The lid it too heavy (nearly half the weight of the function pot!)
• Couldn’t bring myself to depend on the reliability of foldable/ and gimmicky spork/foon
• Not so “ultralight:” – I have a 1 litre billy with handles that weights 117g. This billy is 40% smaller, and with the silicone gripper only saves 5g.

What could be improved:

• A silicone or plastic ring or sleeve around the rim would address many of the things I don’t like about this set – providing the user kept the flames away from the rim. It would eliminate the need for the sipper lid, neoprene sleeve and pot-gripper which would bring it down toward 100g.
• More solid cutlery, a straight spoon would suffice.

Bottom-line:

Hard to knock something for a soft issue like ‘ambience’, so if drinking a cup of tea at a campsite with a takeaway coffee cup feeling does not disturb you, and you want something solid and light then this set may work well for you. If not, there are some great ideas in this set to borrow to either customise this kit or another that you may already own.

Get more detail with the NZ Open GPS Project

I might like all maps, but I really love FREE maps!

 

Back in 2009, I wrote how to get free street maps from the NZ Open GPS project loaded into a Garmin Edge 705. As I look to venture into more mountain biking and perhaps even do a little more tramping I have found other maps from the NZ Open GPS Project that provide more detail and as such are far more useful when leaving tarmac.

 

For best results:

• Build UltraMaps (Free Open GPS NZ Combined mapset) with Mapsource and send to your GPS. Make sure that the ~700Mb gmapsupp.img file is copied to the Garmin folder of your Micro-SD card.
• Copy the gmapsupp.img file from  “Free Open GPS Autorouting” mapset into the Garmin directory for the internal memory of your GPS
• When on the road for latest maps and less screen clutter to help read street names disable the “Free Open GPS NZ Combined” mapset in Setup –> Maps
• When in the mountains or trails enable the “Free Open GPS NZ Combined” mapset in Setup –> Maps

Free Open GPS NZ Autorouting (~38Mb)

The Free Open GPS NZ Autorouting Maps (updated every weekly) are a well known and heavily used mapset. It includes all the NZ roads and are suitable for road navigation from a car, or a road based cycle tour or brevet. You can download the latest image from http://www.nzopengps.org/public/Direct_gmapsupp/ and copy it onto your GPS [instructions]. This mapset is about 30Mb is size.

 

 

Use this mapset if:

• You have limited storage
• You do not have Mapsource or Basecamp software
• Your journey is entirely on the road.

Free NZOGPS_DOC_SRTM (~220Mb)

For mountain biking or tramping, a little more detail may be cleaned from the NZOpenGPS_DOC_SRTM map set (last updated 2010) – this adds Department of Conservation tracks, streams, rivers as well contour lines from the NZ Topomap series, increasing the size to over 200Mb.

 

 

This mapset is updated infrequently. Probably best to miss this one.

I would generally recommend that you use either the Free Open GPS NZ Autorouting (above) or UltraMaps (below). But use this mapset if:

• You are venturing away from the roads and have limited storage capacity on your GPS.
• You don’t mind some old data and the screen is too cluttered, even after reducing detail when using the “UltraMaps” mapset

 

UltraMaps / Free Open GPS NZ Combined mapset (~700Mb)

 

“UltraMaps” or NZ Open GPS Combined set. Fully integrates the NZ Topo series with the routable street maps. This mapset is very complete at about 700Mb in size and may in some situations provide too much detail for a handheld GPS screen. It is not available prebuilt as a GMAPSUPP.IMG file, so it is more complex to install. You will need to have Garmin’s Mapsource or Basecamp software to build it and transfer it to your GPS.

 

This mapset was a little hard to find, but after delving into the forums of the NZ Open GPS project I came across a post from “Mr Purple” – thankyou sir. When installing it will be worth looking at more recent posts in the same forum to look for newer versions of this mapset.

MrPurple wrote:

LATEST VERSION includes latest changes to zoom levels, typ skin, and a recent road update.
Ive combined all the different ones I've made including Nevs improvements to the typ skin with the offical OS maps and provided an updater as a seperate program to grab any new OS road map you might install. To be clear the OS road updater doesnt update the OS roads, it grabs the OS roads you have installed and copies them into the combined map. You need to update the OS road maps yourself first.
Once you unzip the archive with 7zip you've got an installer with topo/title boundaries/OS roads/residual tracks
Part 1 of 4
Part 2 of 4
Part 3 of 4
Part 4 of 4
OS road updater
If you dont want any of the maps on your device just dont select them when you transfer, or better yet prepare multiple mapsets by renaming the gmapsup.img which you create to make mapsets that you can switch between.

 

 

This detail is fabulous when in the hills, especially on foot. In urban areas with a small  GPS sized screen it can be cluttered and getting the detail right so you see all the street names you desire can be a challenge.

 

Use this mapset if:

• You have plenty of storage
• You have Mapsource or Basecamp software
• You are spending time in the mountains or trails

 

 

The Ultimate Combination…

As per the “for best results” summary at the beginning of this post, I am now having my cake and eating too. When navigate the cities and towns of New Zealand I am disabling the “Free Open GPS NZ Combined” mapset. There may be other ways to achieve these same means but this is a simple and easy to understand method of achieving this result. Alternatively, if only routing from the “Free Open GPS Autorouting” mapset there may be more pure topomap sets to load which I will investigate over time.

 

I have tested this process on both a Garmin Etrex 30 and a Garmin 705 GPS.

 

For best results:

• Build UltraMaps (Free Open GPS NZ Combined mapset) with Mapsource and send to your GPS. Make sure that the ~700Mb gmapsupp.img file is copied to the Garmin folder of your Micro-SD card.
• Copy the gmapsupp.img file from “Free Open GPS Autorouting” mapset into the Garmin directory for the internal memory of your GPS
• When on the road for latest maps and less screen clutter to help read street names disable the “Free Open GPS NZ Combined” mapset in Setup –> Maps
• When in the mountains or trails enable the “Free Open GPS NZ Combined” mapset in Setup –> Maps

Folding Bicycle Cults

With Russ and Laura from the Path Less Pedaled blog currently touring New Zealand on their Bromptons, I have for the first time become aware of the folding bicycle cults. While using Facebook to arrange a meeting with their readers one response asked "Can Bike Friday riders come?"

I found this odd, I had presumed all readers were welcome regardless of bicycle type. It was appearing there just might be a Brompton pride/envy among folder riders I know nothing about. When randonneuring I certainly have no need to feel like I must seek permission to bring my Trek. Previously I had never considered any cyclists to be tribal, and noted that most cyclists like all bicycles (but not necessary Bicycle Shaped Objects or BSO's). Can anyone can explain why foldable riders are far more brand tribal than all other cyclists?

It seems to go something like this:

A Bike Friday, a Brompton and a Dahon rolled into a bar.

The Brompton said "I'm the ultimate contortionist, I bet none of you can fold as compactly as I" and disappeared under the barstool.

The Bike Friday said, "So what I fold, unfold and go faster than any of you." and promptly disappeared into the sunset.

And the Dahon quipped, "as folders can change the world of transportation - providing we make sure the average person can afford one of us. Remember Henry Ford?

Note: I do not own or possess a folder of any brand. I am however very interested in seeing how the increasing popularity of foldables can make public transport more.convienient and car ownership less necessary. There are many other folding bicycle brands although these appear to be the three most popular brands.

Poisson Lune Film: PARIS BREST PARIS The long ride toward a distant dawn

I recently watched the movie on Vimeo titled “PARIS BREST PARIS The long ride toward a distant dawn”. It is a 46 minute film about some Paris-Brest-Paris history, and then some coverage of the 2011 event. I am still has me inspired by this great event and I can’t wait to get back to France to do it all again in 2015. From watching this film, it is apparent that there was greater sleep deprivation in the riders a few hours behind me, than amongst those that I was riding with.

 

 

PARIS BREST PARIS The long ride toward a distant dawn from Poisson Lune Films on Vimeo.