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Time for a brew

I love a coffee and cake stop as much as the next man, but what if you are way off the beaten track? The chances are that you will be carrying a stove for those morale boosting cuppas and essential nutrition. The Alpkit BruKit could be all you need for that brew up. It is an all in one stove and pot combo that uses standard gas canisters. There are plenty of other stoves on the market but what we wanted to find out is whether this stove is one we would confidently take out on a big ride.

At first glance, the Alpkit BruKit looks remarkably similar to a Jetboil stove. As I own one of the original Jetboils, I was intrigued to see how the two compare.

Say Hey, Good Lookin’, whatcha got cookin?’

The BruKit comes complete with everything you need to get going.

There is a 1-Litre pot with inbuilt heat exchanger, neoprene pot sleeve, rubber lid and the all important gas burner. All of these come in a stuff-sac. You also get an adapter for standard cooking pans as well as a tripod that attaches to your gas cylinder.

You have to buy these last two items separately with the Jetboil, and you don’t get a stuff sac either!

The Brukit packs away neatly into its stuff-sac

There’s no replacement for displacement

My original Jetboil weighs 480gms, while the Brukit is 590gms. Having said that, it has twice the capacity (1 litre vs 500ml) so the weight gain is negligible. Despite the greater capacity, the Brukit is 15mm shorter and only 25mm wider than the Jetboil!

Cooking with gas

The beauty of these integrated stoves is ease of use. Screw on the gas canister, screw on the pot, fill it with water and use the integral igniter to get it going.

The BruKit pot has a built in heat-exchanger, which increases the surface area ensuring more efficient heat distribution. Consequently, you get the dual benefits of faster boiling and reduced fuel consumption. The heat-exchanger also acts as a wind-shield further preventing heat loss.

The tall pot is not ideal for cooking (as opposed to just boiling water) but the adapter makes it easy to use standard pots too.

The gas flow is easily adjusted so you can simmer rather than just go full blast!

The adapter included for standard pots

Standard pot in place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The need for speed

If you want a quick cuppa you won’t want to wait forever for your water to boil. Nor do you want a gas-guzzler which means you have to take spare gas on every trip.

A simple test should demonstrate the relative efficiency of each stove. So I set up a head to head.

The task was to see which stove brought 500ml of water to boiling quickest and which one used the least fuel. ( 500ml is the Jetboil’s maximum capacity and is also roughly what you need for a dehydrated meal.) To calculate which stove used the least fuel, I weighed the gas canister before and after each test.

Stove tested	Boiling time for 500ml	Gas consumption
Standard Jetboil	3 mins 10 seconds	4gms
Alpkit BruKit	2 mins 52 seconds	3gms

As you can see the BruKit was both faster to boil and used less gas than the Jetboil!

Another advantage is that the Brukit takes a larger gas canister which can be stored in the stove during transit. If you remove the pot adapter and canister tripod, the BruKit will accommodate a 350gm canister.

With everything you need in the box (bar gas!) the BruKit is fantastic stove, fast, efficient, easy to use and lightweight. Lighter, more compact, stoves won’t be as user friendly nor will they have the same capacity. They will probably need a wind-shield too to remain efficient.

If you are riding in a group, sharing out kit, a BruKit would beat individual smaller stoves in most cases. I thoroughly recommend it!

Review: Backcountry Research Super-8 Top Tube Strap

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Simplify, then add lightness

The Back Country Research Super-8 falls into the Now why didn’t I think of that category. The concept is delightfully simple and incredibly effective. A rubber backed wide velcro strap attaches to your top tube, and two pairs of shock cord loops with rubber tubes are used to secure items. In practice it’s child’s play to operate.

Place the Super 8 in easy grabbing distance!

Keep it simple…stupid!

Weighing in at 35g the only lighter way realistically to attach something to your bike is a couple of wraps of electrical tape! The negligible weight and bulk of the Super 8 means you won’t notice it if you leave it on the bike and switching it to another takes seconds. Constructed from a synthetic rubber called Hypalon, the Super 8 is rot and UV resistant, so when it gets grubby it’ll survive a trip through the wash.

The Super 8 has really come into its own of late. Frosty starts have necessitated big gloves and warm layers but as soon as the sun pops over the treeline you start to overheat. The Super 8 keeps these shed layers secure and to hand if conditions take a turn for the worse again. Far better than cramming jersey pockets to bursting point!

The Backcountry range doesn’t stop at the Super 8 and Keep Pedalling also supply the Mutherload, Race and Camrat straps. These are designed primarily for puncture repair kit and varying sizes of spare tube.

The Super 8 retails for £21.95 in store or can be bought online from Keep Pedalling by clicking here.

 

Review: Passport Cycles Lug-Kage

 

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When you come to a fork in the road, load it!

Increasing numbers of bikes are being launched with “three pack mounts”. They look like bottle cage mounts but with a third bolt and are typically found on fork blades or down by the bottom bracket. So what are they all about?

Quite simply, these mounts provide additional opportunities to hang stuff on your bike.

The Lug-Kage is Passport’s version of the “anything cage”. Essentially these are oversized bottle cages that can swallow up items larger than your regular bidon.

What’s it made from?

The Lug-Kage is made of 6mm alloy rod, tig welded to a mounting plate. They are anodised to keep corrosion at bay, and are available in silver or black. The cages come with new bolts and a pair of velcro straps to hold your kit in position.

Load em up!

While this style is known as an “anything cage” there are limits. Passport rate the Lug-Kage up to 3kg and recommend using them in pairs. This is common sense really,  as hanging 3kg off one side will cause havoc with handling!

The velcro straps are long enough for anything that will fit in the cage.

The Lug-Kage is ideal for carrying lightweight but bulky items like sleeping bags, kip mats and down jackets. As a general rule of thumb, if it can fit in a 4-5 litre dry bag, you can probably carry it. It’s worth noting that the straps should compress the load directly and not around the cage itself otherwise you’ll bend it.

There are three slots in the base plate so you can adjust the strap location to suit your load. Fitting is as easy as undoing and tightening a few allen bolts. The bolt holes are slotted to allow a degree of adjustment.

Some forks (like those on the Specialized Sequoia) have two bolt mounts. These are likely to have the correct spacing but be sure to check the recommended load limits. Use isn’t restricted to fork blades, a number of bikes have suitable bosses on the downtube but then there are pedalling clearances and tyre spray to consider.

 

On the trail

With a suitable load the Lug-Kage has minimal effect on handling. You might find the looks a little challenging but that’s a small price to pay for  increased load capacity. I found that, as the cages don’t protrude beyond the width of your bars, you don’t snag the scenery as much as you might think.

The arrival of the Lug-Kages coincided with our test of the Alpkit Brukit stove. Carrying rigid items like the Brukit in a saddle pack is rarely satisfactory as you have to pack around it to keep the pack stable. Putting it in the Lug-Kage however was a breeze, and meant the stove was easily to hand for an impromptu brew up!

Obviously if aero-gains are high on your list of priorities the Lug-Kages aren’t going to appeal, but if you want to up your load lugging capacity you can’t go wrong.