Biknmik

Coming from a ultralight hiking background, I prefer my Shire's Tarptent 1 man Virga.
If two or I want a solo palace, I use the Tarptent Cloudburst.
Virga is 27.7 oz and the Cloudburst is 38.1 oz measured down to the
nat's ass.

Easy set up, less than 90 seconds.


Mike

roadie66

i use a Tarp Tent Rain Shadow 3 3 person 3 season tent weighs about 40 OZ
this is the same tent my wife and i use for camping works out great for the bike too
https://www.tarptent.com/photos/rainshadow2_trek.jpg

iamarobotman

I use a Eureka for backpacking/touring: https://www.eurekatent.com/p-62-pinnacle-pass-2a.aspx

It's so light and easy as pie to set up. It's a very well made tent.

nun

1)Tarptents like the Contrail are roomy for one and I can sit up in it easily. There's plenty of space for gear and the bike will even fit in the vestibule, but it blocks the door so I usually just lock it up outside. I add 3 guy lines to the 4 recommended to make the tent very sturdy and so that I can stake the sides down in bad weather.

2)Free standing is good to have so for that you can get the Rainbow, it's just over 2 lbs

https://www.tarptent.com/rainbow.html

3) Tarptent are great quality, and work in a wide range of weather and circumstances

https://www.tarptent.com/photogallery.html

4) That attitude propagated through an entire gear list adds many pounds. I love being able to lift my bike and gear up onto my shoulder if I have to go over obstacles and get up the hills with a little more ease. I like my comfort so I take the attitude that I want the lightest gear possible that gives me at least 90% of the utility of my old heavy gear. I've reduced the weight I carry form over 20kgs to under 10kgs and I don't think I'm missing out on much comfort.

5) mine's grey

soltour

I have a hogan two man ultralight, have had this tent approx three years and have never been let down. It weighs about 1.6kg...green outer and yellow inner, and when the sunrise hits it....wow..gives you that good to be alive feeling....

DukeArcher 

They look allright, but nah, I'll just keep the tent I have now, the one I am happy with.

niknak

We used this tent on our trip to Iceland. It withstood ferocious winds and plenty of rain. The huge vestibule space allows us to store our panniers and gives us a place to cook/prepare food when raining. One thing I dislike about most tents is that the interior gets wet during setup and when entering in the rain. The Exped tents fix both of those problems.

We also have a Tarptent for backpacking and short summer tours. I'm not convinced this tent could withstand Iceland or any serious storm. It is however cheap and light and airy. For those of you with Tarptents have you used them in heavy rain and/or wind and how did they perform?

sunburst

Now this is something I may consider. It's the right price range for something that will probably get only occasional use.

I'm surprised how much attention this old thread is getting, given the season we're in.

nun

That's as good a reason as any to have a tent.

Neil_B

I believe a trailer weighs about 12 pounds, but it's being pulled, and not 'on' the bike.

JamieCompos

Right now I'm using an REI Quarter Dome T1 - it's under three pounds.

On my Transam trip I carried a Sierra Designs Light Year - also a good, light tent.

foamy

Another Big Agnes SL1 fan. Best tent I've ever owned.

thecrunge

I just bought a Sierra Designs Asp 2 to replace my 16 year old Eureka. It weighs a little over 5 lbs. Probably the best thing about it (other than being new) is how quickly and easily it is to zip/unzip the doors; good for diving in to avoid letting in the biting bugs. The floor is fairly rugged so a footprint shouldn't be needed. I set it up in the basement for the first time and almost keeled over from the severe chemical stench! Yowsa... Airing it out overnight outside did the trick. https://sierradesigns.com.tents.display.php?id716

JustCruisin

Lord there is a batch a choices to make when selecting a tent heh. Going to be hard to be weight serious here as most of my camping was on a two wheeler with a motor and I did a lot of it, putting on 10 or 15k miles a year. camped every year in the ashville area for a week, a couple of weekends in the ozarks and at least 1 week out west, colorado, badlands, idaho or somewhere every year for about 10 years. I have a very understanding wife who does NOT camp LOL.
First the kelty is a great choice I have some frieds who have the 3 person version and it works.
Second I always get a larger tent than I need ,I like to have everything in my tent to keep it dry and access everything without getting wet. I have one small ultra light about 2.2 lbs says it a two person but I don't think it would hold two children!
The easiest way I could shed 4 lbs from my load would be to diet!
That said LOL. The tent I carry almost always is a 3 man free standing, a 2 piece that goes up and down like butter for a single person.
If my son is along I always carry a 4 person that has full headroom ,I can stand and pull on my pants and have a chair inside ( a luxury a motor allows) but this would be a pretty hefty load on a bicycle. I also used this in my N.C. run as we camped in a camp ground and toured from there returning everynight. So it was once up once down for a week of comfort.
I can't do the motor thing any more had a bad accident and fear I would lose a leg with even a fairly minor accident. I also can't walk much but I discovered I can peddle a bike this fall so I have taken up bikeing in the hope of getting back in shape ( I am 65 and retired now) and pehaps taking up some camping again.
Therefore my opinion ,get a little bigger tent than you think you want. get a free standing tent with as few tie downs as possible(its quicker to put up and down and less stakes = less weight. Aluminnum poles cut a little weight but at a fair increase in price. I have never had a failure of either .I did have to hunt one down on our return one day when a fair to middlin storm hit. Just carried it back and used more stakes lol. A 3 season tent will work fine for almost all the camping we will do on bikes but if you are gonna get serious weather then get the Nalla they are great tents and will run with any of the nothface tents at a much better price.
Hope you learn to enjoy the camping as much as I have and hope I can do again soon. You will meet the best people in the world and make friends for life.

recklesscogniti

I'm doing a China--->Portugal trip starting in march 09 and will be carrying a 5lb 4-season kelty tent. I was having too hard a time trying to find a cold-weather tent or a 3 season I could use in snow, so just settled for more weight. I figure I will lose 2 lbs in the 1st week of riding anyway.

benajah

Walrus used to make a solo tent called the Micro Swift. I have one, and it is fantastic (even used it in the Alps in winter), but I think the company went out of business or got bought out or something. At any rate there is such a huge variety of things out there that if you shop around, find what you want, test it, etc, you cannot go wrong. The good thing about shopping for gear, the salespeople are as into it as you are, so the are generally cool about you setting up tents, climbing into them, even taking off and putting on jackets and stuff inside them to test clothes changing.
My best suggestion is to stay away from hammocks. I love them...as long as I am in the woods...but that one night that it is pouring and you are away from the woods, you are out of luck. When I lived in the east I used them a lot. When I move to California, I found that they are not practical here because I just cannot be guaranteed a place to hang them. Either the trees are not there, or are too bushy, or are too small, or are too big, but you just don't have that guarantee of two perfectly spaced 10 inch diameter poplars or hickorys that you have in the east.
As far as it goes, you really have more choice today than ever in history, but just shop based on versitllity and functionality. And be willing to pay real money for durability. In the outdoor retail industry you get what you pay for, there is not a lot of fluff. Pay for quality and you will not regret it, at least if you have ever tried to save at the sacrifice of quality.