Stu – yes it was, though it wasn’t an exhaustive search, just the cheapest price from a place I knew. Free postage too.

Thanks. I’ve been out on the bike two days on the trot for the first time in ages too 😉

Pete – I’ll mail you.

Somebody was asking about an Integral Siltarp many pages ago (can’t remember who or when), but I purchased just such an item from Winwood Outdoor, so here’s my short review based on a first pitch in the garden earlier.

It weighed 206g in its little bag, without guy lines and pegs. It measured 5′ by 8′, and has 5 guy points down the 8′ edge and 4 guy points along the 5′ edge. In the middle of the tarp is one lifter guy point.

Obviously for bikepacking, I wanted to work out the best way to pitch it around the bike that provided as much coverage for the whole body as possible and good directional defence against wind driven rain. This is what I came up with:

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Integral Siltarp[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

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Integral Siltarp[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

It seems very stable set up like this and gives a good level of space inside, and with the head at the end where the front wheel is, gives great protection against the elements. The lifter guy point in the middle of the tarp is pegged out to the ground, but could more effectively be routed over a stick sourced from the camp spot.

I’ve attached four guys along one edge, and a fifth of the lifter point. The tarp will pitch either way around depending on which way the weather comes from. Pegging the tarp to the ground along the other edges seems good at minimising weather coming in from underneath.

With the guy line attached (1.5mm dynemma and mini line-locks), it weighed 222g. For a secure pitch, I reckoned on 10 pegs, 6 of which are ti wire and 4 were ti v-pegs. Total weight is then 306g, which I think is very reasonable giving the level of protection I appear to have gained from the above pitch.

My previous MYOG tarp using the same pegs as above came in at 544g all in, so I’ve saved 238g, which is nice 😀

Ian

Ian, Re. the PHD kit,…[snip]…I’ll be using the Ultra bag and Minimus vest on the WRT.

Anthony – thanks for that, very helpful.
Final question – how did you find the sizing of their stuff?
I fit the small size for chest measurement, but the medium for height.
I think I should go for the small for maximum insulation (i.e. no air pockets around chest), provided it won’t come up a bit too short…

Dehydrated food:
Cous-cous is easy to carry, light and quick to cook.
Smash – very good calorie to weight ratio
Noodles + cuppa soup (Ainsley’s Mullagatawny is my preference)
Porridge + dried fruit and powdered milk
Chocolate coated coffee beans to maintain caffeine intake
Fruit tea bags (I don’t like powdered milk in tea or instant black coffee)
Pepperami – it’s meat of sorts
Custard + banana chips
Hazelnuts have the highest calorific value of any nuts.
Expedition Meals are good, light, full of calories but quite expensive.
Green & Blacks 80% dark chocolate

Wet food:
Sharwoods Saag Aloo or something similar is really nice and quite good on the calories.
Malt loaf, just because it’s nice
Flapjack, obviously

Anybody used Inov8 Race pack with the horizontal bladder? Any good for biking?

Yes, I have the Race 12, with the horizontal bladder. It’s a nice bag, sits well on the shoulders and the weight of the bladder is distributed low down which is good. The back of the bag is padded too, which is good for putting in awkward objects and them not digging into your back.

I can’t believe we’re a few posts into food and no picture of flatfish’s christmas dinner

Seeing as I took the photo, here you go:
[/url]
P1030436[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

Shoes – just bought some of these. They still feel quite stiff around the uppers, so need to be broken in a bit before they turn up for the WRT. Not everyone’s cup of tea in terms of styling (flatfish), but they seemed OK for the money.

Sorry, back to page 25 again:

Anthony – Member
PHD Minim Ultra sleeping bag (genuine 900EU fill mmmmmm) 345g
PHD Minimus vest 240g

Anthony – How do you find this combination in use, and how cold have you found you can take it down to?

I got mine from a local outdoor shop where I get a discount, but they have them here for £15.

Thanks Pete and everyone else for your congrats on our little baby girl – we’ve called her Sophie.

The disadvantage with those mugs is that you they can’t go on a stove. As my mug is metal, it can serve dual duty as a pan or a mug, and weighing only 12g more and costing about £5 more than the X-mug, I think it’s more versatile. All my cooking stuff packs inside the larger pan anyway, so I don’t feel I’m having to make extra room for it.

One of my principles of being weight efficient it to take stuff that serves a purpose in addition to its primary one, thereby negating the need to take an additional item if a secondary purpose can be fulfilled adequately.

Is it me or is 8+ mins to boil a pint of water very very slow?

Yes, compared to gas or petrol stoves, 8 mins isn’t that quick at all. However, if you want to use a gas stove in very cold weather it won’t work very well. Petrol or paraffin is a bit on the smokey and noisy side, plus they’re much heavier – I have these types of stoves too.

As Stu and others say, there’s no hurry really. I can get the stove lit and a pan on while I do other stuff and it sits there quietly boiling my water with little hassle. Also, it doesn’t weigh much. I just happened to weigh my cooking kit, which comprises of a Vargo Tirad, Tibetan 550 pan, 450 Ti mug, Caldera Clone wind shield and a pot warmer comes to 209g before fuel.

Given the light weight, I’m happy to endure 8 mins to boil up for a brew 🙂

Ian’s wins when it comes to craftsmanship & aesthetics

Thanks 😉

Ian what size of gap is there between the top of your stove and base of your pot when everything’s in place?

18mm

Tibetan titanium pans are about the lightest you can get. I use a combo of a small 550ml pan and a 450ml mug for extra versatility without incurring much extra weight.

Stu, I think the Clone would reasonably hard wearing. It withstood being blown across the decking earlier without loosing much shape. It is most prone during transit, so if you can roll it and store it in a pan it should be fine.

Real world performance test, using the above setup: cup of tea made outside in 8 mins 54s total time in quite windy conditions too.

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Outside boil test, with lid[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

Very pleased with that 😀

ponce around the forests and mountains singing the theme to Fame

Perhaps Monty Python’s Lumberjack song would be more appropriate 😆

Back on Page 25:

Very nice job Ian, it’ll be interesting to see what effect it has on boil times. If it works well I anticipate a world foil shortage

In between changing nappies, I finished off my Clone with some holes punched around the edge. In the end, I’ve put about one third of the holes that are shown on the template, with a single row of 21 holes around the top rim, and 19 on a double row on the bottom, but only partially around the base which allows me to direct it or not towards the wind.

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Completed Clone with holes[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

So, to the boil test. To keep the test method in line with my previous stove test[/url], I boiled 450ml of water in 8m 7s, once the stove is fully primed, which is 4m 21s faster than with a standard windshield.

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Boil test[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

With the significant reduction in boil time, it’s definitely worth the effort to make one.

So thats Sleeping bag, bivvy bag, tarp, cooker and down vest all in under 1KG, Nice.

Sounds very good indeed. Just remind me exactly what this comprises of again?

The Encylopedia of Knots and Ropework by Geofrey Budworth is worth getting if you want to learn knot tying fir yourself

@s8tannorm – once I’ve done the vents I’ll do a boil test to the same standards as my recent test for a close comparison.

@Anthony – I got my silnylin from Quest Outfitters in the US. Carrington apparently make it in the UK, but it appears impossible to get hold of

@Chew – something like an On One Inbred would be a good starting point I think. Being short doesn’t necessarily preclude a 29er, check out the WRT blog for the bike Stu is building: that’s a 29er and he’s not known for being lanky

OK then, serious (foil) hat on now: Caldera Clones.

I googled them and found a long and detailed thread on Outdoors Magic here[/url]. I emailed the guy who worked out a template to create them and he sent me the latest version. It uses PostScript language, which for PC’s you’ll need to download some (free) software to open it up. I use a Mac, which conveniently turned the .ps file into .pdf without me having to do anything special.

I fiddled around with a couple of paper versions first to try out the various parameters of the template:
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Caldera Clone – paper trial[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

Once I was happy with the a template, I sourced some 0.15mm alu foil from here, and then printed and cut out out my final template:
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Caldera clone ready to be cut out[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

After about half an hour I had this, though I still need to add the vent holes:
[/url]
Completed Caldera Clone[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

The final version I produced had a series of fissues on it that interlock, so I can split it down into two parts, roll it up and pop it in my pan, thus:
[/url]
Caldera Clone packed[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

It weighs 21g, which is a 5g lighter my the other one, but looks more stable and more effective at excluding drafts.

Overall it was all a bit of a faff, but I’m quite pleased with it. It cost me £7 instead of £35 for a proper Caldera one. However, I suspect that the Caldera ones would be a thicker grade foil, as you have to handle this stuff a little more carefully. Because of this, I think it will be susceptible to picking up small creases or folds through use, but we’ll see.

As ever, you learn a lot doing the first one, and there is only enough foil supplied to do one, even for a small pan such at the Tibetan 550.

971 – 20th prime number

IGMC

edit – on a more serious note, I’ll post up some pics of my Caldera Clone in a mo – just finishing it off

Worlds roughest trip?

😆

and this is post #953, which is the 18th prime number 8)

you can’t even bung on a different fork, without replacing the wheel

That’s a very good point!

pedalhead – thanks for the tip on the finish for the post. Might have to crack open the piggy bank and get one 8)

Hmm, nice

Edit: I meant the bivvy bag, not the tent…

I’m more interested the 200g bivvy bag?

Ian you know I know how to travel light, regardless of the amount of space

Yes, I know – which is why I think panniers aren’t the thing for the job as they’d be too big. Top rack bag would be the best idea, as you say.

@pedalhead – yes, you probably did get that from me. Reassuring though, if nothing else 😉
<hijack>I looked at those Erikson posts last night. Just had a big battle to extract a USE Carbon Sumo from my frame – no damage to frame, but the seatpost is now in the bin. What prep have you done to keep the seatpost from sticking to the inside of the frame, as I’m wary of putting ti against ti?</hijack>

Now ya nan,mom,grandad,dad,dog,goldfish etc have ’em. Can’t wait to see what all those eejits covered in tribal sh!t look like when they get older….lol

Don’t go to the swimming baths in Merthyr Tydfil!

@pedalhead – what SS gear do you use when the bike is fully laden?

Also – what seatpost have you got in those pics?

I’m not riding 2,300 miles with all my stuff velcroed to my bike.

I’ve read somewhere (bikepacking.net, possibly), that a set of panniers have never made the entire trip. You could try and set a new record for fastest time with intact panniers 😉

I’m much more in favour of the frame bag thing, due to the improved weight distribution. You’ll have less space than panniers, but I’d view that as a good thing as you want to travel very light. Panniers + rack is too heavy before you start to put stuff in there.

@ dawson – That’ll be the Siren Fred Bar I think, which puts the tri-bar position up and back closer to how it would be on a road bike. http://sirenbicycles.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/are-you-a-fred/

I like my Carnegies, so I’d go with those and consider the Fred on top of the stem for the tri bars.

Gears would be good, yes.

I used to have some scales like those, until they broke. Not the best for weighing bike bits.

I’m starting to get the weight of my gear down in preparation for the WRT. Mark II tarp is shaping up in my head, just need to unroll the 1.1oz silnylon and sew it 🙂

Found a super lightweight sea-to-summit dry bag in Cotswold the other day too – very thin and light.

I’ve nearly made my lightweight windshield ala a Caldera Cone – will post some pics of that soon.

Pegasus for me, which is handy as I already have one 🙂
I’d stick with a rigid carbon fork at the front too, I reckon.

Wildcat Gear is on hold short term. Plan is for some product development over the next couple of months and then launch properly around the end of May.

Seatpost saga didn’t end well, but I didn’t use a hacksaw to get it out 😉

Having just had great difficulty extracting my stuck carbon post, I’m hesitant to put a Ti one in there… 😕

Edit: got 900th post before ianb.

I’m not playing anymore now that you’ve all noticed 😛

Also, busy out in the garage trying to extract stuck seat post from frame…

Is this the type of Pole you have in mind TJ?

That made Beth laugh so much she nearly went into labour 😉

Depends where you ride and what gear you use, I guess?
For most of the rides I do, I’m quicker on the singlespeed.

Here’s another pic:

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P1020649[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

Not completely exclusive:

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P1020055[/url] by ianbarrington[/url], on Flickr

Thanks all. I realise the clamp not being fully bonded into the top of the tube may render the whole thing useless, but I’ll give it a go all the same.
Joolsburger, thanks for the link – given me some inspiration