Personally I’ve never had to carry more than 2 days food, 10 days on a standard Bikepacking setup would be difficult I think even without beer

Scott Felter’s custom fat bike is a serious tool for self sufficient multi day stuff, have a look here
https://bicyclenomad.com/canning-stock-route/

One trick I used to use to minimise fuel usage was I kleen kanteen insulated wide mouth flask, Chuck some pasta in followed by boiling water then screw the lid on and wait, a bit like a super efficient pot cosy.

My kit is fairly parred down now but even with a full frame bag I’d struggle beyond 3 days and would need a rucksack or perhaps some of those micro panniers for food.

Asposium wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:22 pm Hi,
Do you have a side view of the loaded bike?
What was the daily food?
Interesting to read more.
Thanks.

Before leaving.


En route.

Breakfasts where
120 g müsli
30 g whole milk powder
10 g tsampa
10 g ground nuts
Also mixed in either 10 g malto dextrose, 10 g ground coconut, 10 g cocoa flakes or other stuff to mix things up a bit.
I packed 4 - 5 days worth of brekkers into one large pouch and used the same small pouch for about 10 days. With this I had less rubbish.
I know how much 180 g are and depending on what I expected from the day, I went with a bit less or more. And a cuppa tea.

Snacks consisted of biscuits, bars, chocolate, dried fruits and some nuts. Usually I would have more nuts with me, but since I went above 6000 m twice and spend loads of time above 4000 m I went for more carbo hydrates than usually, since our body struggles more to gain energy from fats in altitude. Going totally energy densw isn't the best option here.
200 - 300 g a day.

After riding I made cold infusion, little brown sugar, just to drink something else but plain water which I drank during the day.
Later a soup. Mostly 1 L.
For supper I had a few different flavours of Soba noodles, two different types of mashed spuds, spag bol etc. also in 4 - 5 day pouches. Then a few expensive lyo food meals from brands like Blåband, Expedition Foods etc. All in the range of about 140 - 200 g.
50 - 100 g of sweets (mostly chocolate) for dessert.

I'd have to look through my planning documents, but I rekon it was about 750 - 800 g/d. I remember it being about 3300 kcal/d. And yes, I expected to loose weight and especially around my shoulders and chest I lost loads of weight. The missing fat around my belly probably made only a minor difference.

lune ranger wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:21 pm As far as cooking is concerned for extended trips without resupply you are going to be best off with a pressurised petrol stove

Very true. I went with a modified XGK and 1.7 L Reactor pot. I went with a large pot since I could/had to melt snow for water for about 1/3 of the trip duration. The XGK may be the loudest, but in my experience the most reliable and efficient stove of the three (Whisperlite, Dragonfly and XGK).
During some tests melting ice (always with some water in the pot), I was happy to find my stove was able to melt and boil 1 L of water with only 25 g of fuel. That's close to half of what usually has to be expected for suxch stoves. Some may find this a lot, but remember it takes twice the amount of fuel to melt and boil ice/snow.


Whilst my kitchen seems heavy, it saves so much weight with its efficiency (and the ability of transporting fuel in PET bottles), that I indeed save a few kg's compared to any efficient gas or alcohol stove (given I'd be stupid enough to use an alcohol stove at 6000 m, at - 18 °C, to melt ice and snow). Also running it half powered, not waiting 'till a proper boil and soaking my food in pouches all adds up to saved weight and volume.

We haven't done anything as extreme as Alpinium's trip but find it pretty easy to carry enough food for 3 days in a bikepacking luggage setup. It would be a lot easier if my son ate things like porridge but he hates anything sloppy like that which makes feeding him a bit more challenging.

For breakfast we often take plain digestives - these are great dipped into your morning coffee and can also be lunch as they aren't too sweet. Salty crackers like cheddars are also good but less dense and don't have the vital fibre to keep you regular. For dinner it is pretty much always noodles if we are cooking out. We have these with mangetout or fried slices of corgette and fried halloumi for protein to fill us up. If it's hot we will have cashews fried instead or sometimes a pouch of tuna with lime or something like that in it.

We have nuts, dried fruit and cereal bars for snacks, plus we now carry a ready meal each in a foil bag for extreme emergencies. Usually by the end of day three we are getting hungry but a good meal in a town somewhere tops us up again. We carry the teeny decathlon backpacks (£1.99 and 50g IIRC) for those times when we have bought too much food to carry in our regular luggage setup. They are only used for a short time til we have eaten enough to pack them away again. I should say that we only have the following bags on our bikes: 13l front roll, 12l seat pack, small fuel pod and stem cell. We don't have frame bags or fork cages or such. Having toured with a pannier setup and also a BoB trailer I wouldn't ever go back to them.

If things really get dire I also carry a wee baggie of energy powder to put into a bottle of water, but that is really only kept for proper emergencies. As the only adult in our team it falls to me to take the hit if we run low on food, so I have been in fairly serious deficit a couple of times but it has surprised me how much I have been able to carry on. Probably using fat at that point!

Writing this reply has got me remembering when we crossed the Picos de Europa mountain range on short rations. The town I had thought we would stock up in turned out to have no shops at all and we had only enough food for one day for the two of us at that point. I wasn't too worried as there was a refugio up ahead (bothy type place) where people would often leave packets of pasta or tinned fish and so on. On day 1 I fed Joe as normal and I had half rations so that I had something to give him if we couldn't find food later on. On day 2 we came to the refugio and found it empty apart from some salt. Just then like a mirage, a van selling groceries pulled up and I thought our troubles were over. Turned out to have mostly stinking dried fish and completely unsuitable things like dried chickpeas for sale. That left two ghastly pink marshmallow wafer things so I bought them both but couldn't even eat mine as it tasted so strongly of dried fish. So on day 2 I fed Joe and not me - things started to get serious when we found ourselves above the snowline on a mountain top with ominous black clouds ahead and a blizzard warning that had come out of nowhere. We bailed out down into the valley as fast as we could and just as the snow started, found a refugio. This one had no kitchen (even salty water would have been good at this point) and when I asked in the village if anywhere did food I was told 'no' and that the public vending machine was the only option. This held crap which wasn't at all appetising given that we were both cold and very hungry by then and in need of real food. In slight desperation I went to the bar where the woman there took pity on us and cooked us the most amazing three course meal I have ever had. I couldn't tell you what I had for dinner last Wednesday, but I can still remember the taste of every dish we ate that night. Food never tasted so good. So although it's not really to be recommended, going hungry sometimes does have its upsides.