Here are some products that I have been very happy with and that I want to recommended. I have no affiliation with any of the companies behind them.

Camping Stove: Trangia

The Trangia camping stove runs on alcohol which has one disadvantage: The availability of fuel. That said, in huge parts of the world you can fairly easily find alcohol-fuel with 90+% alcohol content: North- and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. Find it in pharmacies, gas-stations, hardware-stores or even supermarkets (in the beauty aisle, I guess girls use it for make-up cleaning).

The regions were alcohol-fuel might not be available (eg. South East Asia), the street-food is so cheap and good, that you probably don’t want to cook yourself anyway.

Once you got the fuel, nothing beats the Trangia stove: It is super-easy to use, no monitoring or pumping, no maintenance or cleaning and it all packs neatly into a little kit: Wind shelter, burner, 2 pots, a kettle and a frying pan. You can make a full-scale meal on this wonder: Rice with vegetables, a big steak and a cup of tea.

Some critics say that it doesn’t work at high altitude, this is entirely incorrect, I’ve cooked at 4500m altitude without any problems.

Other critics point out that it burns slower than the pump-systems, which is correct: However, I find this to be an advantage as your food, especially your rice, doesn’t get burned and stuck to your pots. Ok, I wait 5 minutes for my coffee while the pump-systems boil the water in 3 minutes, these 2 minutes doesn’t stress me and is far off-setted by the ease of use and no-maintenance.

The Trangia is Swedish and as a Dane I hate to credit our fierce rivals. But the Swedes did get the Trangia right, they really did 🙂

Be informed that you can fairly easily make your own alcohol-burner from a coke-can, see how on youtube. This homemade burner is free and light-weight but doesn’t compare to the entire Trangia kit with pots and pans, neatly packed together.

Camping Chair: ThermaRest

After a long day of cycling, it is very nice to sit down and be able to rest your back. If you carry an inflatable sleeping mattress why not double the use and turn it into a comfortable chair?

 

You simply fold your sleeping mattress into the “cloth-chair” and 20 seconds later you are ready to kick back and relax.

The mattress doesn’t have to be ThermaRest, most inflatable mattress will fit as they tend to be around 50 x 180cm. This might very well be the best 300g that your carry, in the evenings you will appreciate it tremendously.

Saddle: Brooks Leathersaddle

A famous saddle which you’ve probably already heard of before. As it is made of leather, it naturally takes shape after your bum.

I have personally been very happy with my Brooks saddle, and know of many other touring cyclists who agree. However, every bum is different so if you have a saddle that works for you, stick with it.

Chances are that you’ll be very happy with a Brooks leather saddle for those endless hours on your bicycle.

Bicycle Panniers: Ortlieb (and Vaude?)

I have to credit my bicycle panniers from Ortlieb; in the time of writing they have done more than 55.000km and are almost as good as knew. I find that very impressive.

The panniers from Vaude also have a good reputation. However, I’ve cycled with panniers and a handlebar bag from Deuter and this is a terrible alternative that easily breaks: Deuter might make very good backpacks but they make miserable bicycle panniers.

Ortlieb or Vaude is the good panniers, though you also pay fairly a lot for this quality.

Tires: Schwalbe Marathon (Touring Plus)

On a 50kg loaded touring-bicycle, I find that your rear-tire should last 10.000-12.000km and your front tire 20.000+ km if you roll with good touring tires.

Punctures are highly irregular, sometimes 1000km sometimes 5000km, depending on terrain and luck. A Bulgarian friend of mine has cycled 50.000+km on his touring bicycle and never had a puncture on his Schwalbe Marathon Touring Plus tires.

Generally speaking, the Schwalbe Marathon series are really good tires, but I haven’t had too much experience with other touring tires.