Weather Research

To help us understand better what cloths we need to pack, we use two tools. First the National Weather Service website which is a site great to find temperature trends and averages. Then we used the following formula to calculate our wind chill on our bikes:

Windchill (ºF) = 35.74 + 0.6215T - 35.75(V^0.16) + 0.4275T(V^0.16)

Where: T = Air Temperature (F)
V = Wind Speed (mph)
^ = raised to a power (exponential)

Windchill Temperature is only defined for temperatures at or below 50 degrees F and wind speeds above 3 mph. Bright sunshine may increase the wind chill temperature by 10 to 18 degrees F.

quoted from weather.gov

Here is a calculator using that formula to calculate your wind chill:

JetBoil PCS (Personal Cooking System)

Since we are limited on space we quickly realized that we needed to treat this trip as if we were on a backpacking trip. With wieght not being so important as it is in backpacking we started looking at the Coleman stoves. The downside on those were the fuel supply, large bulky canisters that use our precious space. So we started looking at what other backpackers rave about and that's when we discovered the JetBoil PCS.

The PCS is very compact. Everything that you need will fit inside the cup to reduce space. Also on top of being compact while not in use it's very effiecent. It will boil 2 cup of water in 2:24 (mins:secs) and 3 cups of water in 2:45 (min:secs). This is perfect since all we'll be eating is "just-add-water" food (Eg. oatmeal, dehydrated meals, cup-a-noodles, etc...).

All in all we are very impressed with this stove and would recommend it to anyone looking for a stove for backpacking or touring across the states on a bike.