We had one of those 8R's way back, running it on two star or whatever we put into the bikes. It was an upgrade from the old Camping Gaz stoves that always seemed to run out half way through cooking a meal and you could never get the correct cartridges for.

I've had a Whisperlight for about 20yrs. The idea was that the 1ltr fuel bottle might act as a real last ditch fuel reserve for the bike if I was really caught out but in reversal of the 8R practice its mostly been run on Coleman fuel to stop the thing clogging up. Anyone tried running their bike on Coleman fuel? Does it mix, do you need to dilute it? If I'm stuck a mile or two from a fuel station (I do run things tight sometimes) will I make things worse by tipping a litre of Coleman fuel into the tank?

Just to go completely back to the (my) beginning I've been using a couple of £10 Vango branded single burner gas stoves for the last couple of years. They just screw onto the ubiquitous £5 butane/propane mix cartridges and that's it. No faffing around with pre heating and the thing flaring up in your face. Three season use only so far but very simple and, unlike the Whisperlight, controllable.

Given the acres of retail space given over to regular kitchen gadgets designed to turn every ten thumbs cook into a Michelin starred chef I'm surprised with the lack of aftermarket bits and pieces for camp cooking. The only innovations seem to be in shaving a few grams off the weight - something that's not of critical importance on a bike. Chuck it all in one pot, heat it up with a £500 stove made of aerogel and powered by fairy dust, then eat it out of the pot with a Spork seems to be about as sophisticated as it gets. Anyone managed to turn their petrol stove into a bbq or a griddle or a toaster or an pizza oven or even a microwave?