Food - How to go 3 full days without resupplying?

[wisaunders]

I've been on several overnighters where I've been able to get away with Mountain House freeze dried meals (dinner and breakfast).  I like having the warm meal , they taste fine to me and seem to have the calories I need, but I can't imagine how I'd pack enough of them for 3 days.  I really don't want to dehydrate my own food and I don't want to eat peanut butter for 3 days.  What are some of your methods?

[fotooutdoors]

If you need several days food, you generally are looking to have higher carrying capacity than standard bike packing kit. So, panniers (our at least a rear rack), a trailer, larger backpack, or longtail may be needed. Personally, I am not ul enough to be able to do more than about 2 days food with my bar, frame and seat bags along with a light backpack. Others push their setup lighter and have less bulk, so they could probably add a day or two with judicious packing.

Sent from a one-finger keyboard...pardon my autocorrect

[roadpacker]

hmm... well if you want to do it with frame bags it's gonna cost you. But I would say:

5 cliff bars / day
about 1.5 cups of trail mix per day
Probably a small block of cheese, and maybe a stick of meat
Maybe two triple decker PBJ's, eat these first
Maybe a sleeve of ritz crackers
Maybe a bit of protein powder for the evenings to get a bit of fillingness and some recovery.
Maybe some nutella rolls if you need that sweet sensation, or like poptarts but these days I don't like the 'candy' foods, like snickers bars. I like the KISS diet. Even Cliff bars have almost *one ounce of sugar* in each bar. That's a disgusting amount of sugar!!

Note if you require cookable food you have to lose pack volume to stove, cooker, and fuel. For just 3 days I'd say cold food is fine. With a friend for 7+ days I would then maybe bring a stove, mostly to keep food costs down!! But also to keep the community feeling. Never-refrigerated eggs can last several days and pack quite the gut-punch.

With cookable foods-- probably just like a bunch of pasta for dinner. I'd say eat lightly throughout the day (not more than about 250-300cal per hour) and then pack calories into dinner before falling asleep. So maybe that would be where you eat the meat and cheese, get that PBJ for lunch, and then nuts and cliff bars for in between times. PBJs, if you wrap them nicely, are good for at least 2 days.

[dadana]

You don't need panniers or a trailer. Try Starbucks Via, instant oatmeal, flour tortillas, individual serving Justin's peanut butter with honey, foil packs tuna fish or chicken salad, cutie tangerines, M & M with peanuts and Little Debbie fruit pies. Mix a Little Debbie into your oatmeal for breakfast. Have tortilla, peanut butter and tangerine for lunch. Have tuna or chicken with tortillas for dinner. Or some combination of all that. It's all flat or really small and I can carry 5 days worth of food in a Revelate Designs frame bag. It all is easy to eat and the coffee and oats only need warm water so you don't need a stove or fire big enough to boil water. Health food it ain't but it has enough calories and sodium to get you through a long day. While you are at Walmart buying all this crap steal some condiment packs of salt, pepper, chile flakes, mayonnaise, mustard and non dairy creamer.

[offroute]

3 days = 6 freeze-dried dinners plus snacks in between. I don't understand why this would be an issue volume- or weight-wise in any typical bikepacking set up that includes a day pack and thoughtful gear selection.

I've packed 5+ days worth of food numerous times, including MH dinners, in a modest set up: 22L backpack, harness/pocket, small frame bag, small top tube bags, large seat bag. I never felt like I was overloaded or even maxed out. Light/bulky items of course ride well in the backpack.

On an extended trip you won't have the variety of foods and packaging available, so, depending on the route, it's key to allot a good chunk of cargo space for food. A stuff sack or other container lashed on somewhere temporarily is do-able.

I would assess what my overall capacity is, and look closely for superfluous items which could be nixed to create needed room. I suspect one of those two issues is the problem.

[Smo]

Fat is key.  9 calories/gram versus 4 for carbs or protein.  Denser in both weight and volume.  Case in point, compare Clif bars to Snickers next time you're in a grocery store - Clif bars are 100 calories/oz, snickers I think are 140.  Also, carry a small bottle of oil and you can supplement those freeze-dried meals.

The only problem is how to contain oil.  When I'm backpacking I use a small plastic bottle with a hardware-store o-ring in the top, and that works pretty well but leaks slightly (in a ziplock, so it doesn't matter).  Being jostled around on a bike could change things, a lot.  I haven't done more than an overnight bikepack yet, so I haven't tried it out.

One option is olive oil packets.  You could open up your freeze dried meals (you do that before a trip anyway, right?  to squeeze the air out of them?) and reclose them with the packets inside, so if they break they just get your food oily.  I actually repackage all of mine into thinner ziplocks anyway, because I use a cozy and don't need the mylar package to rehydrate.  Repackaged freeze dried meals save me more space than my cozy takes up.

If you have a mexican store near you (or if you live in the southwest, maybe just your grocery store), carne seca is a great way to add protein.

[Area54]

So many ways to go about it. Here're a few pics of my meals for 6 day supply on the kiwi, a fairly low tech and non-exotic solution means I can follow a similar plan in most countries.

Raw materials for main ration ziplock


1 day ration packed into a tough ziplock, 3 meals, stored in seatbag and only accessed at mealtimes



Raw materials for high energy ration ziplock


In between meal high energy ration, 2 gels, 1 clif bar and 2 regular granola bars, whole ziplock stored in jersey pocket and accessed on the bike


Complete meal pack for 6 days. High energy ration x6 bundled into tough ziplock, portioned for each day.


Only thing missing from pics is a heat treated salami (stored whole, portion cut up each night with macaroni) and jelly snakes. This is a luxury plan that requires boiled water.

For a fast and light trip I'd go with a custom no-cook MRE.

[LyndaW]

Great suggestions here.

Instant mashed potatoes pack down nice and small and are tasty mixed with a foil packed chicken breast or tuna etc. Not to mention they are fraction of the cost of dehydrated meals.

[Smo]

I should mention another thing I've read about, but never tried - putting freeze dried meals in a food processor to grind them into powder, then packing them into ziplocks.  I read about a guy who went caving for a month and wanted all of his food to fit into a gallon sized container . . . that's what he did.  And then hammered them in there to fit even more.  Still lost 20 pounds during that month, but I guess he packed enough to survive?

[mattyp]

i just had 3 days worth of breakfast, lunch, dinner for a backcountry trip.  i do carry a stove, so i had lots of hot water whenever i wanted.  my usual set up is handlebar, frame, medium seatbag, two top tube bags.  for the 3 days i added a medium backpack (ergon bc-something) and after the first night was able to rearrange everything so i had just rain jacket, pants  and a small pump in the backpack.  i ride a medium-large frame, so if you ride a smaller size the frame bag might not have as much volume.  you might also look at getting rid of certain things you never use or things that are overly redundant. also getting the smallest packing things helps to shrink the kit, regardless of overall weight.

[chris1991]

I personally hate all these trail energy type things. I will just cook like im at home just using improvisation, you would be surprised what hearty meals you can cook with fresh ingredients and a bit of imaginations. But the weight of a stove and food is the cost, but i dont think you can put a price on a warm meal at the end of a days biking!
EDIT:
Also i do resupply everyday, so i can see why this wouldnt work for you american bikepackers where everything is too spread out ahah!

[Mini Bear]

The biggest key for me was to take a page out of the ultralight backpackers book and make sure that all the foods I bring are at least 120 calories/oz. There are some foods like potato chips that hit that mark, but are bulky, so pretty much every single food item gets crushed to smithereens. Using this as a guide, I was able to pack for the three day section of the Colorado Trail from Buena Vista to Silverton in a small bar bag, small seatbag, small frame bag (I'm small if that isn't coming through), and my jersey pockets (no backpack). Of course, this is all much easier if the rest of your kit is ultra compact as well.

[camnrtn]

I want to chime in with a reasonably successful experiment I've been playing with lately. I recently did a three day trip with no resupply points. I feel breakfast and dinner are pretty easy: breakfast porridge, muesli or similar with powdered milk; dinner various dried foods with cous cous or rice and flavoring. I'm veggie and eat a lot of TVP when on trips, weighs next to nothing and cooks up quickly.

Lunch I've always found harder and when fresh food isn't an option often rely on pumpernickel with a bit of cheese or other flavoring, but it gets crushed in your bag and isn't really that nice IMO. I recently went through with a plan to make savory energy bar-type things as a lunch food that turned out awesome!

I made these oat, olive and semidried tomato bars: http://www.anjasfood4thought.com/2013/04/savory-oat-bars-with-olives-and-sun.html
and a modified version of these with quinoa and protein powder, using chickpea flour and some flavoring: http://powerhungry.com/2013/04/savory-power-bars/

They were both really nice and I'd eat them very happily during my regular life. The former was more tasty than the latter, and I reckon if you added some parmesan cheese to either of these they'd be twice as kick ass, as can be said with most foods. You end up with a dense, highly nutritious, easily stored, healthy energy bar with a whole lot of flavor. They might be heavier than dehydrated food but aren't expensive and don't require a dehydrator. They are highly modifiable and you could add anything you like really. They also don't seem to go bad - they were in my fridge for about 4 days then on the trail for three and they tasted as good as when just out of the oven. They could also be a trail snack to counteract the overwhelming sweetness of energy bars and scroggin (trail mix).

Anyway, I didn't make up the recipes but was happy with how I applied them to the trip and wanted to share. Highly recommended!

[Kevinscamps]

I do bars for breakfast eaten while still warm in sleeping bag. Cheese, tortillas, and wiener for lunch. Two mountain house meals for dinner and before I go to bed second dinner.  I can get 5 days of food into my pika saddle bag with a bunch of bars shoved in other bags.  High volume items like sleeping mat and pot/stove end up in an Rei 22 pack on my back and migrate back into the saddle bag as space becomes available.   

[trebor]

I did 3 days worth of food last spring on the TDLP. I didn't document exactly what I carried, but this is close:

6 packages of Ramen noodles
3 foil packs of tuna
1 salami stick
6 packages of instant oatmeal
10 oz of coconut oil in plastic flasks
1 jar of almond butter
6-8 ounces of textured vegetable protein that was "enhanced" with curry powder, salt, dried onion flakes, dried parsley flakes (mixed with hot water it makes a soup - but often it was added to the Ramen)
2 or 3 cans of sardines
1 or 2 packages of Gummy Bears
Some mini Payday bars (maybe 8-10)

Had a stove and a cup to cook in. Most of this was in the frame bag (I have an XL frame....) along with 100oz water bladder.

[Kevinscamps]

That is possibly the saltiest diet with the most saturated fat I have ever seen.  Whatever works I suppose.  When I backpacked I always liked to have an extra ramen or two in the pack as just in case food, but bikepacking I find that their calorie to volume ratio is poor despite being very light.
 

[trebor]

The idea that fat, even saturated fat, is a cause of health concerns I find outmoded. The ramen is absolutely the most horrid thing to consume - and is not ever in a "normal diet" regimen. However, during the extended days of overreaching on the bike, the calories and easy digestion seemed to work well for me. The fat also packs a higher caloric punch than does the sugar/carb and protein.

I fully admit to eating grotesque food in grotesque quantities while out there. It may not work for all.

[MPS]

How about this? Its a detailed food list for 7 days without resupplying. For hiking, so a bit lower on the calorie count, but should work well enough for biking.

http://andrewskurka.com/2014/week-of-backpacking-food-breakdown/

[Flounder]

I did eight days without resupply this summer. I just simplified things by going with dehydrate meals from Mt House and Good-to-Go. I also relied on instant oatmeal, Epic Bars, and a jar of Justin's Almond Maple butter. I also carried a block of cheese, a sausage and a few TOO MANY ProBars.

[windowace]

I second Flounder. I did six days in September mainly with dehydrated meals.  I was eating about 3-4000 cal/day.  Just go for the highest calorie/oz meals.  I also took a block of cheese,  an 8oz log of sausage, 4oz olive oil, and dehydrated potatoes.  By the way, adding the "loaded" dehydrated potatoes to the "breakfast skillet" dehydrated meal was awesome.  Oatmeal used to be my go to breakfast, but that combo rocked!  I had a hot breakfast, and a hot dinner, lunch was random stuff like candybars, stinger honeywaffles, gummy bears, etc. This was all in a 25l osprey pack, frame pack, and toptube bar and handlebar bag.  It was a bit tight packing the 1st couple days but obviously improved each day.  I finished with food left over, I could have gone at least one, if not two, more days.