Bicycle Touring 101: Campstove Olympics

This is a Do It Yourself soda can stove. Notice the handmade windscreen and pot holder. The two paperclips inside the leftmost can are used to hold the windscreen together. There are actually four stoves in the picture. By building your own stove you have a variety of options available to you.
Click to enlarge.

During my last tour I was touring with a buddy who had just completed building a soda or pepsi can stove. For a bit of fun and to enliven the supper preparation we decided to have what we laughingly called the Camp Stove Olympics.

All activity categories were completed in parallel by both contestants at the same time. When a category was completed the winner would wait for the second place finisher before both would start the next task.

Results

The Homemade pepsi can stove is much, much cheaper then the MSR Dragonfly. Bob estimates $20 CDN for the first stove and since material is left over several more stoves can be made with what remains making the cost even lower on a per stove basis.

The MSR Dragonfly cost at least $120 CDN when I purchased it two years ago. I need to look up current prices but it will be more especially since I also purchased a maintenance kit and spare parts. The Pepsi can stove can simply be recycled when it wears out.

This might seem like a strange factor but not if you happen to be trying to stealth camp or simply type up your daily journal entry while supper is prepared. The Dragonfly is noisy. In fact I often think of a high performance fighter aircrafts afterburner when the Dragonfly is in full gear. In contrast the Pepsi Can stove is blessfully silent.

The MSR Dragonfly that I have can run on six or eight different fuels including diesel and automotive fuel. Having said that the reality is that I usually only run on white gas. Still it's nice to know that if I really needed to then I have options.

The Pepsi can stove runs on alcohol and only alcohol. This fuel is readily available in at least North America (think Lock de-icer fluid). The only other possible issue could be cold weather temperature performance. This last topic needs more research.

Two other advantages of the Pepsi Can stove is the ability to rebuild on demand with very cost effective, off the shelf parts and the ability to modify the design to meet your personal needs. Want a longer average burn time then build a slightly higher stove. Want bigger burner holes? Go ahead and create them!

Winner is the Pepsi Can stove although cold weather performance needs more testing.

The MSR Dragonfly is a heavier stove then the pepsi can stove without question. In fact Bob was carrying three stoves with him without any weight penalty that I could tell.

This test determined how quickly a stove could be setup from stowed away inside pots etc to being ready for a match to be applied.

The MSR Dragonfly has a pressurized fuel bottle. Of course it gets that way when someone uses the built in pump to increase pressure. This improves performance BUT from discussions with several backpackers, canoeists and cyclists who have used the stove the pump is easily broken.

When the gas bottle is already pressurized then the Dragonfly can be setup in about the same amount of time as the Pepsi Can stove.

When you can pack multiple stoves in the same space and without weight penalty as the competition then I believe the convenience factor is already won. Why?

Imagine setting up camp and wanting to cook two, three or four items in parallel? Bob would have been able to do this with the Pepsi can stove while I would have been stuck following a sequential path with the Dragonfly.

This test was performed by having the stoves fueled and setup ready for a match to be used.

Both stoves had to bring an identical amount of water to a boil as quickly as possible using the highest performance settings available to each one.

The Dragonfly was two to three times faster (think 5 minutes versus 10 minutes) compared to the Pepsi can stove.

This sounds impressive until I apply a reality check that not all people would buy into. I often type in my daily journal entries while cooking dinner so I normally use the Dragonfly on a much lower setting.

A higher temperature test needs to be performed with the Pepsi can stove to determine if the cold outside temperatures during the test played a significant role.

Both stoves seemed to take about the same amount of time to cool down for safe stow-away.

You decide. After all it's up to you to decide what stove works best for your needs. I have to admit that I was surprised and impressed with how well the Pepsi Can stoves work especially when you factor in the cost.

Interested in making your own stove?

The next section discusses the Zero Cost Cookset including some simple plans that allow you to easily build your own stove.