Even though I had done a lot of biking, and a little backpacking, I’ve never tried to carry or cook over a backpacking stove until this summer, so putting together a cooking kit involved a lot of research.
I finally decided not to go the typical route with a gas-powered backpacking stove, and instead found a very clever device made out of curved sheets of stainless. It comes apart and packs down very small in a semi-circle around a pot. Inside the pot I can nest a bowl, a coffee cup, a burner, and a spork, and then top the whole thing with a second collapsible bowl and a coffee drip.
The semi-circular bag wrapping around the pot contains a whole stove, assembled below.
Designed here in Minnesota, the Littlbug camping stove. Depending on how you look at it, it’s a wind screen that holds a pot up, or a stove that doubles as a wind screen.
In terms of fuels, the Littlbug can be powered by an alcohol burner or a small wood fire. The fire is festive, but of course entails a bit more time and effort, so I plan to travel ready to deploy either.
This is a small burner from Swedish company Trangia that runs on denatured alcohol from a paint stripping company.
I found out on test outings that burning wood in the stove is great, but the stove is so small it can be hard to break down pieces of deadfall small enough to fit inside it. To that end I found a small folding saw from Japanese company Silky. It’s called – not kidding – the Silky Pocket Boy.
Matches in a tiny Nalgene work pretty well, but I found out the hard way to always carry a small lighter in case they won’t strike. I also have these genius fire starter sticks that are a combination of wax and sawdust and virtually guarantee a start, found through the Three Rivers Park district in Minneapolis.
The Pragmatic Cyclist 
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