The Pika Lid - Beta
The ultimate lid for ultralight titanium pots that's packed with features! The Pika Lid secures your fuel canister, lighter and pot together in "trail mode" eliminating the need for a pot sack. It prevents scratches and rust rings from your fuel canister on the inside of your pot. It has a convenient unit conversion table so you don't have to do math in your head when you're trying to figure out how much water to boil for your beef stroganoff.
Are you ready for the best part? It converts your long handle titanium spoon into a pot handle! Just slide your spoon through the arches on top and you have very functional pot handle. Pour water straight into your freeze dried meal or strain excess water through the drain holes on the opposite side. You can leave the handles on the pot and your pot grabber at home.
Wanna cook inside your pot instead of boiling water? We got you covered! Flip the lid upside-down and the lid nests perfectly on the rim of the pot.
WARNING!
Even though this is a high temperature resistant thermoplastic (same plastic used for spatulas), plastic is plastic and plastic melts. To prevent melting, please follow these guidelines:
- Do not use with 550ml pot (flame can get too close the the lid)
- Do not use with a stove with a large burner
- Do not use with stove on high setting (low setting is recommended for better fuel consumption anyway)
- Do not use in a campfire
- Center pot on stove so that the flame doesn't get too high on one side
- Insure all 4 tabs are engaged when pouring water out
- Weight: .97oz (27g)
- Dimensions: 4.37"x3.79"x.78"
- Material: Glass-filled Nylon
Beta Version
We have an initial batch of lids that we are selling to those of you interested in putting the final tests on the lid. We have been testing the lids on our own, but would like to see them used in many more environments and situations.
If you are interested in purchasing one of the beta lids, we ask that you have a trip (or multiple trips ideally) happening before the end of June and that you are willing to provide feedback of the lid.
Didn’t fit my 750 ml Evolved pot from Darwin so now it’s a coaster
Really a great piece of kit. My gas canister, burner l, and lighter fit easily into 700 ml pot and it all stays together because the lid snugly snaps on. No more rubber bands. Makes cooking easy. No burnt hands because your spoon fits into two slots on top of the lid. Feels like you’re pouring from tea kettle at home. Great gear for the backcountry.
Great piece of kit! Secure and organized. Strains pasta, works for drinking, cooking and keeps my cook kit organized! I really hope more models are in the works to fit different pots!
Brilliant idea....love the design and utility of it.
Got this lid thinking it would be a great addition for my 2 most used pots. It definitely is!
I've used it on 3, 4 day trips this season so far, switching between a Toaks 550 so I can get feedback for on it with a typical UL setup, and my own custom Joule Bandit V2 pot.
Pika outdoors mentions its not compatible with the toaks 550ml due to potential to soften and warp the sides of the polypropylene material, but they are definitely being overly cautious here. Which is a good thing for consumer safety, these people obviously care about us. But if your like me and running your stove on low to save fuel, there's really no risk IMO. I can easily grab the Toaks 550 by the lid with boiling water in it and feel that the PP is no where near its glass transition temperature that would make it soften or warp. So even less of a risk if you someone like me who uses tiny thermometer stickers to heat your water only to 75C to save fuel over going straight to boiling.
Chances are if you have a toaks 550 in your inventory, you use it like most SUL/UL hikers do with more efficient and low burns, so you won't have any problems. But if you like to nuke your pots for faster boiling, stick to the confirmed pots that work.
My rating/take on each feature.
Unit Conversions, iconography, and easter eggs: MUST, this is great and I love self referencing/documenting hardware that takes information on how to use it and embodies it into the item itself. This is the kind of things gear makers that actually use their own gear come up with and it shows the people at Pika Outdoors are systems thinkers with a strong eye/theory of mind of their users, nut just hype chasers.
Bic/Fuel Storage: Also a must IMO. Having them store securely into snap fits means they cant rattle around in your pot, letting rust embed into anodized pores, or the steel rolled lip on fuel canister rims from wearing away food safe anodized surface treatments for those that use anodized aluminum pots. It also just reduces pack noises while your hiking... not a must, but a nice thing I randomly noticed while hiking with it.
Secure Snap Fit to Pots: Also a new MUST for me. Previously I was using elastic bands to hold my kit together without stuff sack needs, this eliminates the need to keep track of another item, and makes the user experience more streamlined and simple.
Spoon storage/handle: Undecided on this feature. You need a long handle toaks for this to work like a handle, and if you have a long handle toaks, you probably won't use this slot to stow it in your pack because of how much it protrudes off the pot. Doing so requires careful consideration for poking/abrasion risk potential on other gear items when packing it away in this configuration. A short handled toaks spoon fits perfectly, and snugly into the diameter of the lid, making the poking/abrasion concerns non-existent. However, the shorter spoons can't then be used as a handle. And when you use a long spoon as a handle, its finicky, not a terrible experience, just not excellent because of how the sharp spoon edges dig into your skin with the weight of a fully loaded 650ml. 550ml though, and its allot more usable as a handle. Perhaps a silicon sock that slides over a toaks long handle can be a great new gear item Pika Outdoors can look into producing one day ;) It could mitigate both the feel/pressure when used as a pot handle, and the abrasion/poking hazard if stowed in that configuration.
The Details: Excellent attention to detail here! Everything from the spacing of the mouth opening being exactly sized to fit Snow Peak silicone hot lips, the poor holes, the extended griping winglets for easy prying off or pushing the lid on, to the strength of the snap fits... so many things here are obvious results of someone who actually uses the gear they work on and tirelessly pontificates over possible improvements of all types.
Weight: Mid IMO. It's no carbon fiber lid, but it also won't be leaching carcinogenic compounds into the water that condense on it and slide back down into your cup; and the wight is well within industry standards for what typically comes with the pots this was optimized for. I only say it's mid because I'm a UL fanatic, so switching to this lid has increased my total kit weight over the usual tin-foil methods. Well worth it for the ease of trail life conveniences it adds, I just needed to find something to complain about here ;)
TLDR: BUY THIS LID
Cheers! --> T-Rex
