RoadTire 

I would say your Stoic is on the heavy side for anything much more than car camping. I have almost the same exact setup/price and it works well, just heavy. PolarBear listed some of the better choices. And you know the labor isn't unethical. Also check out Six Moon Designs - Lunar Solo LE A really nice 30 oz tent. It's next on my list for backpacking, when I do start back into it.

This might have already been mentioned, but I saw somewhere a tent using your bike to hold up the back wall. Imagine a zippered tent wall between you and your bike, and an outside wall covering your bike.

prathmann

But note that the Lunar Solo doesn't include either the pole or the stakes in the weight specified or in the price.

The tent that uses a bike for support might work for some, but I frequently set up my tent and then want to head into town for dinner or other shopping. Wouldn't want to take my tent down every time I hop on my bike.

Wanderer

First off, 195T is the "construction" of the fabric. Not the fabric material.

The only mention I can find as to material is on tentreviews.com, where they state that the fabric in Stoic Tents is "silnylon, a nylon fabric coated with silicon on both sides"

Hope this helps!

RoadTire 

Ok, expensive 49 inch carbon fiber pole, 1.8 oz, $30, stakes 2.2 oz, $9.5, both Easton brand, both from SixMoons. Now we are up to 34 oz. Holy cow, I can save 1.8 oz by using my treking pole for the tent pole. Gives me a chuckle, now that I think about it. Just to spin this sideways, I have been thinking about hammocks, but in the cold not really saving any weight because of the extra under quilt needed. And yet, never having to find a rock or root free piece of realestate is very enticing.

Good point on using the bike to hold the tent up. Never thought about setting up and going to town. Heck, once on a hike the trail went across a highway close to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, so we asked permission and in we went, packs and sweat and all.

hueyhoolihan

thank you for the clarification. really.

andrewclaus

In the hiking world, there's a saying, "You pack your fears." If you're afraid of the dark, of things that go "bump" in the night, of getting thirsty, hungry, wet, cold, or even running out of TP...you tend to pack accordingly. If you ever overcome those fears, you start to pack less and/or lighter stuff. When I think about the reductions I've made over the years in shelter, rain gear, extra clothing, camp lighting, food prep, water treatment, and even TP, I realize that's been true for me.

Back on topic, I had similar revelation first time I used a Henry Shires Tarptent and it quickly replaced my heavier, more expensive brand name tents. Since then I've looked for similar cottage manufacturers. I bought an enLightened Equipment quilt for my last bike tour, and carried an ultralight backpack made by Gossamer Gear.

hyhuu

So I see that you haven't gotten over your fear of "not having a shelter" huh?

antokelly

what do you reckon on the quilt, i bought one but havent used it yet.

MassiveD

What is the title of this thread about? I just read through the whole thing, and how is this 95 dollar tent american made?

The thing that occurs to me is that when I was selling camping gear around 1980, a tent of simple lower quality design, like a eureka a-frame was about 200 dollars. North face was 500-1000. Tents of the complexity shown in this thread were somewhere in between. At the time a car was probably around 3-5K. Today, cars are a lot more expensive, and tents are about 2/3rd or half the number charged 35 years ago. Doesn't really change the decisions that need to be made, but for sure it is cheap to do this stuff today.

mdilthey

Check the blog post. The tent isn't american made.

jabantik00

from 1990 or so until 2004 i had a north face starlight or tadpole or something. i liked it a lot, but i fell on it in a drunken stupor about 2 months into a 3 month trip to france, and the poles failed spectacularly. i bought a 10 euro cheap piece of caca from carrefour or super u or some other french mega store with the intent of using it for a few days until i could get something else reasonably good. i ended up finishing the trip with it. it wasn't waterproof and it wasn't easy to set up, but it kept me warm and dry enough that i didn't care - it was like 15 bucks. in 2005 (i think) msr came out with the hubba hubba with great reviews, and that is what i have used since. in 2007 i fell on it in another drunken stupor, but it didn't totally fail - the poles just sorta bent in a funny way. then in 2011 a strong wind caused a pole to snap at one of the funny bends, and i abused rei's generous return policy and returned it. rei paid me to return my broken tent because it costs less than it did in 2005. how wrong is that?

anyways, the point of all this rambling, if there is a point, is that a cheap piece of caca can work for a surprisingly long time if the weather isn't awful. and a fairly nice tent can fail if you're a drunken idiot

Doug64

And sometimes it only takes a few minutes to tell if a tent is really good or not.

60 mph wind gusts from a pre-frontal squall blew over these large cottonwood trees near the campground where we were staying in eastern Oregon.

andrewclaus

The quilt is the best outdoor gear purchase I've ever made.

antokelly

fantastic glad to hear that.

robow

Did I miss what this tent actually weighs? I only saw the 6.5 lbs shipped which is not usually the actual tent weight. mdilthey, could you weigh your tent as you actually pack it and let us know.

Normally for only a few bucks more, I would probably get a Kelty Grand Mesa or Salida 2 on sale which come in at about 4 lbs but who knows, they may have all come out of the same factory with different labels slapped on at the end. Thanks for the heads up.

Louis Le Tour

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Louis Le Tour

Could you, perhaps, post some photos? This sounds interesting.

Louis Le Tour

I'll drink to that!

john.b

What is up with that website? Their Quilts products page shows the Enigma Pro at $275, I click on the item and it's $410.

Leebo

Here is pic from last years tour around the Quabbin reservoir, MA. 2 hooks from the inside( extra flat rack pieces) reinforced and glued. Those 2 hooks fit onto the rear rack. One strap around the side and one on the top. 100% water proof, brightly colored, and fits all my clothes for the 5 days.

andrewclaus

It looks like they give you a default set of options that's more expensive than the base cost they show on the title page. If you play with the options, you'll get different prices. They've changed a little since I saw them last, and prices have gone up.

ruirui

that's a nice size tent! do you guys carry it on a trailer or something?

dwmckee

Hey, I do not have any pictures handy but if you do a web search on kitty litter pail panniers or litter pail panniers on this forum or on the web you will find a ton of Info. My originals had home made hooks and I spent all of $5 making them. I since upgraded to buy Ortlieb mounting hardware and installed that on the same old pails. The pictures someone else posted are a pretty fair representation. I have been using mine for probably 5 years now. If you set them up right they wind up level with your rack and make a huge flat platform for all kinds of stuff. U have put a couple of bundles of firewood on top of mine before. They work fine as seats too. Totally waterproof and easy to get in them at a stop. Nothing better. I am told they might get brittle and crack if you use them in the winter, but I do not tour when it is snowing so not a problem for me. I covered mine with white shelf liner paper (adhesive backed) so you cannot see the tidy cats paint job. Some folks paint them or use a solvent (acetone?) to remove the original branding stuff. I just cannot say enough positive things about them. The dirty little secret Ortlieb does not want you to know about.

mdilthey

The problem with kitty litter panniers is wind resistance. If you're not in it to move quickly, though, it's no big deal.