Burnin' alcohol like I mean it!

The upcoming Tour De Diligence had me working out some details that I have been meaning to get around to.  One of those was to build a light weight and easy to use camp stove that would do simple chores like heat a cup of water for dehydrated meals or tea, etc.  I am not likely to be cooking hash browns on a bikepacking trip.

So far I have built three stoves, all of them fueled by denatured alcohol and made from cat food cans or soda cans.  None of them took a great deal of time or effort to make and the Cat Food can is so dead simple that a child could make it.

I have been using my Ti 14oz cup as a pot and timing the minutes to boil (if it gets to boil) and how long the stoves run on a full amount of fuel.  All of them get the job done but my fav at the moment is the Pop Can pressurized stove, both for its ability to accept more fuel and the time to boil.

The first version I made was from a 3.5oz cat food can donated by a neighbor.  I washed it out and took to it with a hole punch, the kind you would use for office paperwork.  It was a decently burly punch, but it did not take much effort to pop the holes in there.  8 holes on the top row...8 holes below that.  Add in denatured alcohol to the level of the bottom holes (do not overfill) and light it with care.  CAUTION!!!  Alcohol burns clear and it is hard to see the flame.  Do not have the source container of fuel nearby or spilled file on you or clothing or etc.  Water will not put the flame out...smothering will.

When lit, wait 30 seconds or so to let the stove heat up and set the pot onto the top of the stove.  This burned for about 10 minutes and had the Ti cup full of water at a very near boil in 8 minutes.  With a more effective wind screen, I think it would have been even better.  The great thing is the Cat Can stove needs no pot stand and fits right inside my cup.  Of course it weighs nearly nothing.  This is a slick little deal.  The only negative I see is that the Ti cup is a bit narrow and the flames tend to hit the sides more than the base.  Still, it works and is dead easy to make and use.

The second stove I made was a combo of two cat food cans, one 3.5oz and one 5oz, and this is a chimney type stove with what I hoped would be a center flame for the narrow Ti cup.  It was a bit more trouble to make in that you have to have two different sized 'church keys'...heck, who has that sitting around?...or make do with a hole punch (what I did) then figure out a way to seal the cans together.  I used JB Weld on the can base and re-used the pop-top lid from the big can to make the base seal.  I had OK results from this one, but nothing that made up for the increased size...does not fit into the Ti cup. The time to near-boil was comparable or maybe not as good.

The last stove I made was a Pop Can stove that is a pressurized type.  This has been my fav as far as the way it looks.  It is so darn cool looking.  It did take a bit more time to make and you have to be precise in the process, but it still took maybe 15 minutes.  This stove will hold more fuel but with the same amount as I used in the first Cat Can stove...approx a 1/4 cup...the Pop Can stove did the best job getting the Ti Cup to a full boil in 10 minutes and burned for 14 minutes before flaming out.  For tea, I could cut that fuel in half and get very hot water.

Links here to sample instructions:

http://www.thesodacanstove.com/alcohol-stove/how-to-build.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hdnBHb09iI&feature=related


I made a wind screen from a turkey roasting pan (could not find an oven liner) and that is easy to store in the Ti cup as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKgG6rlR-gI

I also made a pot stand out of a couple of bike spokes and the butt ends of two copper spade lugs for heavy gauge wire.  I just had the lugs sitting around, but any malleable tubing would work.  The stand sits about .75" above the stoves and seems like I just lucked into a good height compromise.  It will hold a larger pot as well.  I think I can refine it a bit.  I want to add a third top runner so it unfolds into a triangle shape and narrow it so it does better with a small cup/pot.  But this is it for now.

I am sure I could get faster times to boil if I had a wider, shallower pot as the tall and narrow Ti cup is a bit hard to heat effectively, but I do not want to carry a larger pot just for the sake of a few minutes time/oz fuel.

I had a ton of fun doing it and it sure works well so far.  I think I will take both the Pop Can and the simple Cat Can stoves and see what works best.  Also, it gives me a backup.

I bet that the backpacking stove folks hate this type of deal and maybe I would not use this on an ascent of K2, but for a few days of simple bikepacking, it is effective and extremely dirtbag.

What is not to like about that?

Stores in the Ti cup.

The Good Old Days?

Even I tend to wax poetic about the way things were "back in the day" when bikes were steel (mostly) and gears were fewer and farther between.  I had one bike, not a quiver.  It was my mountain bike.  It did it all.  We never even considered more than one bike for different types of riding.  Heck there were no different types of riding.  There were just mountain bike rides.  Up down, rough, hike-a-bike, wet, bumpy, smooth...they were just rides.

So the other day an old friend called who used to ride all the time but traded his cycling time in for horses and hiking boots.  He got his old bike out of the rafters, dusted it off and found that the elastomers in the Manitou 1 fork had gone to mush and he guessed that:

1. I could actually take the fork apart (yes, I still have the long allen wrench for that)
2. I might have some elastomers around (I do...and springs and crowns and arch braces and etc)
3. I could actually put it back together ( yes, but it took a bit to remember the bushing trick)

So here is a fine example of what we rode then, built for a near 6'3" guy from Tange steel, mini brazed by Curtlo Cycles, painted by Shades (an early job I think...maybe even Imron), and still running stuff like a Hyperlight Bar and bar ends, XT grouppo, Mavic rims, etc.  Love the HUUUUGe big chain wheel and the stem that shames Pinocchio.

The good old days?  1.5" of travel in a wiggly fork?  150mm stem and too short top tube?  Rim brakes?  I bet this bike came with a rigid fork originally.

Let's talk weight.  The heaviest bike I have is a 130mm travel XL 29er FS with moderate parts and a dropper post.  All in it is 31lbs or so with pedals.  My XC bikes are all under 25 and some well under like the SS.

This baby?  33.5lbs.  Really?  Really.

Ooff.

I think I will stay in the future if it is all the same to you.

The Tour De Diligence

Mon Dieu!

Well, my French translation dictionary calls out 'Stagecoach' as diligence,so I will so name the upcoming bikepacking ride accordingly.  The whole thing was a result of the revered brain of fellow countryman and adventure mountain bike nut Jason B.  He wanted to tour a route that had been a springtime endurance race, one of those unofficial races I like so much.  Around 400 miles in length, the Stagecoach 400 was won by some automaton in 48 hrs or so.

He wanted to break it up over 5 days, 4 nights, all self supported except for what ever we pick up in towns along the way, and we would be camping...no motels.  Credit card touring, we would not be, hmmmm?  Yoda sez.  

So that inspired me to wave my little hand in the air and commit to the mad adventure.  So now we are getting pretty close to the lift-off time and I am in the pre-packing and gear finalizing mode.   As it stands, this will be the set-up:

• The bike - Project Go-'Fish.  A Salsa Spearfish 1 frame up build.  XX drivetrain, Carbon Roval wheels, Manitou Pro fork.  Hey, we did not say it had to be a beater, right?
• Custom bikepacking bags from CDW (not sure if they are even in biz anymore), so h-bar bag, seat bag, gas tank.  Supplement with a frame bag from Salsa Cycles for the Spearfish.
• Deuter so-big-I-can-sleep-in-it hydration pack - Trans Alpine 3  
• Cat food can stove (still need to build)
• Integral designs Silshelter (no longer made...flawed design but good base to work with)
• Maybe a bivy sack as well
• 20 degree down bag used as quilt (need to remove zipper and re-sew seam)
• New Exped super comfy pad
• Clothes as needed, spare tubes, tools, etc
• Food, endurance drink mix, etc.

So I have been debating a few things.  I have a much lighter and smaller bag, a Deuter Dreamlight 500 that packs up incredibly small, but it is rated at 50 degrees.  So even with a bivy sack and some clothing layers, it would be pushing it.  And I sleep cold as it is.  By the time I wear stinky bike clothes to bed to stay warm or pack more normal warm clothes, I might as well have all the insulation I need in the quilt and sleep naked if I dare...not likely.  The 20 degree down bag takes up the entire seat bag but so it goes.

All the tarp, poles, stakes, ground cloth, bivy (if I bring it), pad, pillow/pad pump, and etc all fit in the h-bar bag with some room left over.  That leaves the frame bag to carry tools and the Deuter pack to carry clothing, water, food, and odds and ends.  So far the pre packing looks pretty good.  We shall see.  

I still need to sort out the GPS...have the .gpx file already.  Then maybe I should bring a small trail light just in case.  Camp headlight too?  Not sure.  Cannot be a kitchen sink deal, but no need to be spartan either.  This is not the Tour Divide race.

The route looks like it will be around 80 miles a day and we hope to keep it mellow, but that will still take diligence.  Yep...there is that name again.  If we get a jump on the first day we meet up and ride a bit until dark, then we will be a bit ahead which could buy us some grace later on.

Today was a bit of an excursion into the fine art of Widgeting.  What is that, you say?  Well it is inspired by both the Scotsman and the garage tinkerer in me.  Widgeting will be explained in the next blog installment as I cruise the shelves of Wally-Mart and Home Depot in search of the better tarp support.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something shiny.

Parts, parts, parts.  Interbike is a bit of a time and energy sucker and, in turn, pays back very little. So I have been way less than interested in blogging.  And as far as riding goes, summer in SO Cal is hardly the pinnacle of trail conditions.  It is hot, dry, brown, and dusty, so epic rides are not really the deal.  So you make do with early and late rides and add in a few high country excursions to get out of the yuck.  Meh!

But I do have two things going on worthy of wordage...the Ti SS build and the upcoming bikepacking trip.  One at a time, here.

I was not really looking to make the Lynskey a ground-up, high zoot, damn the cost and the torpedoes build.  So it will be getting a bit of this and a bit of that.  The bars, headset and stem are really nice, new FSA goodies.  I have some Ergon GA-1 grips, the old ones and the good ones before they made them into a skinny DH grip, and the rest is a mixed bag.

As it is now:

• FSA cockpit as mentioned
• WTB Pure V saddle (what else?) and Syncros CF seat post from the stripped Blackbuck
• Old Shimano Hollowtech II 180mm XT cranks and BB with 34T CR and ring guard from the Blackbuck
• A Fox 110mm fork from the Camber.  110mm sounds tall, but a Fox 110 is still only the same height at the crown as a Manitou 100mm fork
• White Industries hubs from the Blackbuck but with a new rim laced to them
• Some Avid Elixir brakes I had sitting in a box
• Tires TBD

The wheels were a real puzzler.  I wanted to use the fast rolling and bomber drive system of the WI hubs.  The polished hub shells and the decently fast engagement, the bolt on rear axle, the true non-dish rear wheel...well, they are really sweet hubs, but they come with some compromises.  They have that odd offset...47.5mm...that is the old Shimano standard for a middle ring chain line.  But no new cranks from the 'big guys' have that chain line.  Bummer.  So, you either run an older crank like the XT HTIIs ( a great crank BTW) or you buy into the WI cranks they offer to match or run any square taper crank with a Phil Wood BB and swing the chain line to whatever you need.

That is acceptable to me, but not convenient.  But the other thing is weight.  That is hardly a light set-up, that WI hub and freewheel.  Bulletproof, yes.  But not light, at least not compared to a DT Swiss 240 SS hub or a American Classic SS hub.  And there is the expense of gearing changes too.

So the wheels as they sat were a build using Stan's Flows (the old versions) and DT Swiss Comp spokes and alloy nips.  Those wheels with valve stems and tape were 2184g all in, no rotors, but with the freewheel included (and 47g for the cog taken off).  Basically as close as I could get to what a 'normal' free hub wheel set would represent.  OOOfff!!!  2200 grams!  Wow.  The American Classic SS wheels on the Carve are 1600-ish grams.

Hmmmm...so I had some rims around that would be a bit more modern for the WI hubs and very wide and strong, but the same weight.  Not much of an improvement.  What would be absolutely fabulous would be carbon rims laced to the WI hubs...what a blend of classic and cutting end new...but no budget for that.  Besides, unless I go China carbon, the Enve hoops are too stiff for an XC hard tail from what I read.

So the folks from American Classic have a new rim that would drop 300gs off the wheel set and get in the ball park and the weight savings would be all at the rim where it counts the most.  the new 101 rim could be a Stan's Crest killer at 381g and 21mm internal width, the minimum for an SS rim (I would prefer 23mm or so, but...) and they way they build the rims, they give you a low rim sidewall height and that allows for more tire 'poofiness'.  

But are they strong enough?  They say they are.  But I was perplexed...lot of work (well, for JeffJ, anyway...I don't build wheels) for a 1900g wheel set.  I could run something like the Rovals I have from a few years ago or even a set of Eastons and get to 1800gs easy...maybe even under that.  And I would have chain line all over the place so i could run any crank/BB setup.

Makes sense.  But.

I really wanted to run those shiny, smooth yet odd and quirky WI hubs.  And although the Fox fork is just a 9mm lower for the axle config, the WI hubs are pretty big diameter at the axle flange surface, not as good as a 24mm Roval end cap, but pretty good.  And they convert to 15QR as a new fork comes along...if ever.  So, the AC 101 rims are on their way and a wheel building we will go.  We shall see.  There is always plan B.  

Meanwhile, the yet to be named Lynskey SS sits and waits.  Bigger fish are falling into the frying pan as we will talk about in the next blog.