Go Gas Zenith Stove
Price: £58.00
Weight: 440g (290g without windshield)
Burns: Standard threaded butane/propane mix gas canisters
plus puncture type with addition of Go Gas adaptor.
Time to boil 1 litre: 4 min 57 sec
Just look at that boil time, almost three and a half minutes
faster than the equivalent Coleman Alpine stove using the same
canister, which tells you emphatically that the guys at Brit' company
Go Gas know how to make their burners roar. Take that literally too -
for a gas stove this is loud, though not quite in the same class as
the Primus multi-fuel burning gas.
But man, cop that price. What else are you getting? Well, for
starters a piece of engineering art. The sheer detail of this stove
reminded us of a bespoke hand-crafted special from a top motorcycle
chassis builder. The whole shebang is basically Go Gas's Summit
stove, plus a clip-on wind shield which folds neatly away like a book
to nestle in its own nylon carry case. But it's the little details
that impress: the tiny clips which let you remove the windshield,
which are actually drilled for lightness and, on each foot, neat
little screw-up and down adjuster plates for stability. In the real
world both these touches are overkill, but there's a certain
wonderment in such attention to detail.
Do you need it though? Not really. It's easier and quicker to
reposition the stove than screw the feet up and down to optimise
stability and the wind shield adds 150 grammes of weight. You'd be
better off with a lighter, more comprehensive MSR-type roll-up
version. You can buy the basic stove as the Summit for £46.
Incidentally, in situ the shile dlimits the size of pans you can use,
but is easily detachable.
It's actually the technology you can't see that's really
impressive. We've already mentioned the burner performance, but Go
Gas has also paid attention to cold weather performance. Their own
Iso Butane Propane mix is formulated to work better at low
temperatures and the stove itself has the capability to burn liquid
gas as well as vapour - presumably once it's vapourised by the
generator tube which like the Coleman Alpine's runs through the
burner for pre-heating. In cold weather and when fuel's running low,
you can simply invert the canister. Neat.
A final thoughtful touch is that the pan supports are drilled at
the ends to allow hanging use, presumably with the canister cradled
somewhere warm - preferably someone else's 'somewhere warm' - for
improved performance.
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Verdict: Ace burner technology,
good cold weather performance, but high price. Those
beautifully engineered details are lovely to look at but
undoubtedly up the cost without adding huge functionality,
but this is a very stable, effective stove. You'll find
lighter for sure, even if you go for the simpler Summit
version, but you'd be hard pushed to better the
performance.
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Performance
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Value
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At present Go Gas has no web site but you can phone them on 0161
477 3330. Fax: 0161 477 1130
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Pushed for time:
Fantastic performance with incredibly engineered details
which probably add to the high price. You can find lighter
and simpler, but you won't find much that competes with the
Go Gas stove, particularly in cold conditions when it has
the capability to burn liquid gas. The Summit version
without the integral windshield is a lighter, cheaper bet at
£46.00. That windshield costs an extra £12 but is
heavy.
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