MSR Dragonfly stove

The heart of our kitchen is MSR's Dragonfly, a Multi- fuel system stove. Designed to work at high altitudes, it's the ultimate in versatility. Having had the cooker for a few years now, it's stood up well to the conditions of bike travel. One particularly neat feature is the simmer control, opening up a whole new realm of cooking potential. Our main gripe has been the pump itself, which pressurises the fuel canister. Several months into the last trip the plastic mounting broke, requiring a whole new pump in replacement. Not cheap. We've spoken to others who have had the same problem - probably easy to deal with under warranty.

Care must be taken to make sure the canister is not over-pressurised at altitude and that the fuel line is given enough time to heat up - otherwise the stove has a tendency to blow itself out. Once this starts happening, it's hard to get this process going again without waiting for it to cool off and beginning afresh. Like other MSR stoves, the parts are easy to disassemble and clean; there's a spare kit available for changing the rubber seals and the like, which should be checked every once in a while for deterioration.

We prefer clean white gas but have generally run the Dragonfly off petrol, easily available and often dirt cheap in Asia. Incredibly, in Iran petrol costs just 2.5p a litre; diesel is a fraction of that!

Pots and pans are also MSR - steel and functional. Lifeventure make a neat little knife/fork/spoon set that fold away into each other. We used an Ortlieb collapsible four litre water bag for camping and longer desert rides.