Here's a tip for bike travellers (without support vehicle) who are camping and carrying food in hot climates:
When I went around Australia (40 something years ago) we had problems keeping food cool. We tried to avoid the problem by buying food late in the day, shortly before setting up camp. But you cant eat a whole block of butter or a big lump of cheddar in one meal, so it would go into plastic (Tupperware) containers, and into the panniers. The next day we'd have liquid butter, cheese oozing oil and maybe some slimy ham (with a healthy colony of salmonella) on our bread rolls.
So I invented a refrigeration compartment. It was a plastic lunch box that I bought somewhere. I drilled ventilation holes in both ends, so when attached to the bike, it had an air flow through it. The food was wrapped in a wet cloth (like a tea towel) and stuffed in the box. It cooled the food by the evaporative cooling effect of the air flowing through the box. Whenever we stopped for fuel, we'd wet the cloth again. We never had melted butter, floppy lettuce or oozing cheese again, even in the warmest parts of Australia. Sometimes (if it wasn't chockers with tucker) there was room for a couple of beer cans in the "fridge".
I normally sat it on top of one of the solid panniers (they had flat-top lids) and secured it with ockie straps. It worked better if there was something on top of it to give it a bit of shade.
If I was to do a similar trip now, I'd re-think it and design something better (perhaps bolted to the pannier frame/rack system somehow) but I'd stick with the evaporative cooling idea. It's reliable and works well. It's also dead simple because it uses no power or complicated technology.
Presumably this won't be necessary for Marty et al. There will no doubt be a portable fridge in the support vehicle.
