I recently picked up a new stove to lighten my outdoor cooking load a bit. I have been wanting a Trail Designs Ti-Tri Caldera cone for years now, but prefer a wider pot, and it is primarily meant to work with mugs. In the last year or so, the TD guys came out with the sidewinder and a was back to dreaming. With a bit of extra cash I splurged and bought myself the Sidewinder kit.
The kit comes with the alcohol stove, windscreen / cone, tent stake / pot supports, fuel bottle, fuel measuring cup, pot lifter and a basic aluminum 2qt pot. The whole package fits neatly into the pot.
The cone acts as both a windscreen and pot support with the ventilation optimized to get the most from their stove. It is in credibly simple to use. load the measured amount of denatured alcohol into the stove, light with a match, set the cone over and then set the pot on top.
I headed out early this morning to start putting it to good use. I was able to bring about 1qt of water to boil with 35ml of alcohol in a little over 15 minutes. This was with the sea breeze just starting to pick up.
I brewed up a bottle of tea for the road and enough left over to enjoy while things cooled off. I am impressed with what is really their most basic stove kit designed to boil at least a quart of water. Simple to use, quiet, clean, light weight and efficient with the fuel. The stove will also work well with Esbit fuel tabs. For a bit of a bump in price their titanium kits can burn wood as well.
The only down side to this kit is the size. While quite clearly described on their website, it is bigger than I envisioned. That is not really a problem, just what it is. I am sure that this stove is going to see a ton of use.
