Speedster Spirit Stove and Pot Stand Review

Simmer ring, burner, lid, simples.

This isn’t so much a review as an honourable mention. The simple, reliable things in life are often taken for granted, especially when they work well and do exactly what they are intended to do every time. I term these ‘door handle products’. Not necessarily exciting, but rather important and only likely to be noticed when they don't work or get snagged on a coat.

The Speedster spirit stove is one such product. Brought four years ago for the princely sum of £5.40 it’s proven to be a reliable practical burner. Speedster Backpacking Products are a UK company who offer all sorts of useful gear for UK hiking, from tick removers to spirit refill bottles, their stock is clearly based on experience.

The stove replaced a Trangia, exchanging robustness for lightness and reduced volume. The 30ml speedster stove weighs 17g while the Trangia is around 108g with a 70ml capacity. It’s a very light tin, with a screw top lid, inside there is some magic absorbent material protected by metal gauze. Unlike a Trangia there isn’t a reservoir of meths sloshing around, the moment it’s poured it’s spill proof. The downside is that the amount of spirit remaining can’t be checked by eye.

Burner, all in one shield and stand, 900ml pot

The burner can be bought with a simmer ring, basically a cap with large hole, which weighs next to nothing. Further adjustments can be made with a coin, although obviously coins are heavy and should be eliminated from the ardent ultralight hikers gear list.

Using a coin to adjust simmer for gourmet cooking

Although I always keep it in a backup ziplock the burner doesn’t leak when full, and somehow manages to do this without a sealing ring. This is brilliant for day walks, it can be filled dropped into the bottom of a metal mug, and that’s brew stops sorted. No gas canisters or clunky paraphernalia.

In my experience, with a decent windshield, a single fill will boil a lidded 900ml titanium kettle of noodles with 500ml-ish water for about 4 minutes, and still have sufficient fuel to boil a mug of coffee afterwards.

Look online and you'll find ample opinion on burn times and calorific value, and of course there’s no way it will cook faster than gas. I’m not too concerned because a smidgen of thinking ahead mitigates any time to boil issues, set up and light the burner at the start of a break or before pitching and get on with other things. It’s unlikely to take longer to boil than the duration of a stop. It cools quickly after use.

Partly unfolded pot stand

I also use the Speedster all in one windshield and pot stand. It’s never fallen over but I’m seldom confident when I set it up. Without the weight of the pot, it seems unstable and likely that the foldable legs will fold in the wrong direction at exactly the wrong moment. A pot with a bail handle helps, because top loading the stove doesn’t move the stands.

I have the ridiculously light independent pot stands (without wind shield) and sometimes take these, but the shield is convenient and reliable - especially so for risky tent porch cooking where there could be expensive consequences to an improvised wind shield failing.

The stand is however not the lightest, 100g including bag, which is a necessary precaution to stop the edges damaging other kit when packed.

Alcohol stoves (or penny stoves) like this are of course simple enough to make from old beer cans, in the unlikely event you have any laying around. I happen to think stoves are important, and potentially dangerous enough, to leave to people who have made a few before.

Shield, bag, burner. Biro for scale.

All in all the Speedster stove is a ridiculously light, cheap and robust bit of kit, so much so that when I’m packing I often forgo any ultralight purist no cook notions and soak up the intimidating 17g penalty in order to enjoy a decent middle of nowhere coffee.

Trekkertent Stealth 1.5 Tarp Tent Review

Trekkertent pitched on Dartmoor, not entirely blending in. As I walked along it occurred to me that I should sing the praises of the Trekkertent Stealth 1.5 , a lightweight double wall tent hand made by a small outfit in Perth, Scotland. I brought the Trekkertent to replace another fine British tent, the Terra Nova Solar Photon . The Solar Photon was ludicrously light for a free standing tent, and incredibly easy to pitch. I was always conscious that the materials were both very expensive and very thin, not that I actually had any problems or damage, even after a sketchy moment when the outer transformed itself into an expensive kite one particularly breezy evening in the Pentland Hills. Primarily I wanted a simple, robust shelter that took advantage of the fact that I was already carrying poles.

The Abbots Way Walk. Possibly.

The Abbots Way winds from East to West across Dartmoor from the small village of Buckfast to the small town of Tavistock. It starts and ends with quiet country lanes, bookends for the longer part of the walk across open undulating, and somewhat soggy moorland.

The Lych (Wrong) Way Walk

As I walked along I considered the rather high proportion of dead to alive that had, over long centuries, completed this forlorn path across Dartmoor. For some it was their last journey. This path is the Lych Way, a corpse road along which bodies were carried from all across the ancient Dartmoor forest, ready to be buried on consecrated ground in Lydford Church yard. The Lych Way is a day long, twelve mile taste of the magic, and occasional misery, Dartmoor has to offer. In between gorgeous views it passes through ancient woods, scrubby moorland, army ranges, soggy bogs, prehistoric and modern relics, fords and stepping stones. A keen eye will notice boundary stones, hidden crosses, wild flowers and wildlife. It doesn’t need a keen ear to realise how quiet and tranquil some stretches are. All this is strung between two quintessential Devon villages replete with pubs, coffee and conveniences.

Lightweight camp coffee, how to get a decent brew on the go.

No coffee, no walkee as they say. How then do you get a good coffee in the middle of nowhere? Is it worth a five mile detour to get a lovingly crafted flat white or is there something you can carry to satiate cravings until you throw yourself upon the sympathy and dubious charm of the local barista? I’ve pondered these questions over long drudgerous miles, when all that keeps me going is imagining the most exquisite coffee known to humankind waiting for me at the end. What follows is a few solo coffee options for ultralight hiking and wild camping.

What on earth is re-wetting?

Isn't Dartmoor wet enough already? As I walked along I pondered the term I’d just heard, “they are re-wetting over there”. What on earth was that? A local version of hair of the dog? A second excuse to celebrate a new born’s arrival? I thought I was getting quite good at Dartmoor vernacular. Although it’s taken years I can just about deal with sentences like “I was at the Ringleshutes Mine Gert near the adit, in all that pixie wool, at first I thought it was clitter but it turned out to be a buddle”. Re-wetting was a new one on me.

The Dartmoor Two Tramways Hike: Section 1 - Ivybridge to Redlake

As I walked along the tramway stretched out for miles, I was walking for fun, pack lightened by decades of innovation, a stark contrast to the tough people who built and worked line, facing fickle Dartmoor conditions in heavy layers of cotton, wool and leather. This post is an overview of a point to point weekend route I tried between lock-downs. It was designed to be accessible by train, take in two of Dartmoor’s more substantial disused Tramways, a couple of nights wild camping and a brace of bracing wild swims.

As I Walked Along

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