Tents
 

We will be touring the Mediterranean this summer, which would you recommend? Single person tents are preferable.

Edit: What are your guys' opinions on Bivy tents?

This link covers tents recommended for bicycling and what to look for:

http://www.bicycle-touring-guide.com...ing-tents.html

http://www.tarptent.com

Many models with good rain coverage and great ventilation and insect protection in a compact lightweight package. Modest prices too. I use the Contrail model.

Although I am not as experienced an outdoorsperson as some 'round here, I like to have a bit of room in my tent. Bivy sacks and solo tents are too cramped for my tastes, as I like to keep my bags inside the tent.

I've used a Kelty Teton 2 and am pretty happy so far. Good price, well made, and only weighs 1 - 2 lbs more than most solo or ultralight tents.

AFAIK it will be pretty humid there, so you might want to make sure whatever tent you use has plenty of ventilation.

A bivy tent is fine but you have no room inside them except for you and the sleeping bag. The advantage of course is they take up little space and weight.

But whatever tent you go with, make sure it has good ventilation... good air flow, especially in the summer is most important.

Bivy sacks are limiting. The Big Agnes Seedhouse 1 weighs about the same with a bit more room. For two people, the Seedhouse 2 is still pretty light. Both keep the bugs off better than a tarptent.

I've been wondering... What's the difference between a tent and a tarptent? The tarptents seem to be lighter than equivalent tents... What's the compromise? Are they roomier than tents? I find that for two people to be minimally comfortable in a tent, you need to get a tent made for 3 people. Is it the same for tarptents?

where are you going on the Mediterranean? I plan to bike from the France/Italy border to the Rock of Gibraltar.

Where are you now? If you're in Europe, I'd recommend checking out the Salewa Denali II. (You might even be able to find this in the states... no idea...). It's 100 euros, big enough for two people, and extremely well constructed. It's light enough, totally waterproof, has excellent ventilation, and has two canopies for stashing gear (although I usually travel solo and stash my gear inside).

Tarp tents grew out of the desire for very small and light shelters for fast and light packing. Appalacian thruhikers, etc popularized them.

"Tarptent" is actually a brand of tents, Henry Shire's Tarptents. VERY Lightweight, singlewall silnylon shelters with innovative peremiter netting venting. most models available with or without an attached floor. Trekking pole setup on most models, supplied hoop poles on others. Some of the lightest, smallest packing tents available.

in general, a 'tarp tent' is a bit more than a tarp. tarp tents are comercially made or homebrewed single walled shelters with or without attached floors. Generally lighter weight than most traditional "double wall" tents, 'tarptents' offer weight advantages to most trad tents. however there are tents like the Big Agnes seedhouse or Sierra Designs Lightyear/ Clip Flashlight that are very comprable in weight.


ventilation is important in a single wall tarptent, so most store bought tarptents have venting options, etc. Golite, Tarptent, Black Diamond, MSR, and other manufacturers have 'tarp tents' of some configuration or other. MOST are sold without poles; designed to use trekking poles/skis, branches, or hung from guylines, some of the weight savings in tarp tents comes from the lack of poles...

I've tried many (50+) different models of tents over the years and even was a gear tester for MSR testing tents in the field and have come to the conclusion:

THER IS NO PERFECT TENT SYSTEM. they all have one drawback or other. generally , tarp tents have some limitations for most bikepackers and are usually not the 'best' system for bike touring. A small percentage of bike tourers use them while bike touring and I continue to stalwartly use tarps, singlewall shelters & tarp tents, so I guess that is a bit of a contradiction, but they have limitations for bike tourers.

I would steer the OP, however, to the new, freestanding lightweight tents available from Big Agnes, Marmot REI, Black Diamond, and a few other select models from other manufacturers. Placing a premium on lightweight, lots of mesh, the ability to set up without the fly, freestanding aiding to ease of pitch

Thanks for the info. I'm starting to look at tents as I usualy borrow a friends' and I'll need my own soon.

Tent: Black Diamond Firstlight
 

I am absolutely nuts about the Black Diamond Firstlight for lightweight touring & hiking use. I just used it for a (very rainy) 15 day tour through Japan in April and it performed perfectly in adverse conditions (heavy rains most nights, temperatures close to freezing on some nights).

It's a single-wall silnylon 1 or 2-person tent. It's about 6'x3'. I'm 6' tall and can sleep comfortably in it, stretch out, move around, change clothes, pack gear, sit up, etc. The walls are steep and tall so there's lots of headroom for the size of the footprint. In 1-person mode I was able to sleep in it with all of my gear inside the tent (4 ortlieb panniers, a handlebar bag, and a fully stuffed/extended Carradice camper longflap) and still have enough room to stretch out. In 2-person mode (with my girlfriend) we were able to sleep w/ room left over for personal items (clothing, jackets, shoes, toiletries, non-waterproof bags, etc.) while the waterproof panniers stayed outside the tent. Even with two people we have always slept comfortably in it.

Here's a link to what looks like the tent on sale for $239. MSRP is $299 but you can often find it for closer to $230 online. (I got mine for $230 on Ebay).

http://www.basegear.com/black-diamon...ight-tent.html

The tent weighs 3 lbs. It's absurdly small and light when packed up. Close to the size of a Nalgene bottle. It's also a lovely goldenrod yellow that gives a delightful cast to morning light... makes you happy to wake up in it ;)

You have to seam-seal it yourself, but I have had no problems with leaking, even in nonstop 12-hour ice-cold downpours. I once woke up with 3 inches of water underneath the floor of the tent... I had pitched the tent in a depression and a heavy rain started after I fell asleep... woke up essentially floating on a small lake :) Not a drop came through the floor.

This tent has received awards from Backpacker Magazine, etc. Can't recommend it enough!

Note: This is of the smallest-size and cheapest Black Diamond single-wall tents. There are larger sizes as well, always astonishingly light for the size of the tent you get.

Tx,
Sam

Those are EPIC canopied, silnylon floored versions of their Bibler 4-season mountain tents. I have the Black Diamond Lighthouse. These tents DO rock, they pack up SOO small. only downside- durability of the tent canopy. but very water resistant, I've used mine on many a wet Northwest night.

EPIC is a NON-coated, very lightweight, very breathable fabric. Silnylon is a completely waterproof, very lightweight, non breathable fabric. big difference.


I really like the EPIC tents but the fabric appears to have durability issues at wear points. Some of the Black Diamond EPIC tents might be good choices for the OP. the ones with a lot of fold back mesh....

perfect for dry weather and very very compact.

I've been thinking about this tent issue. looking back to the earlier days, most serious tents WERE single wall tents, of various water resistance of canvas or nylon..... some of the mountain tents were quite light and compact.

tents had 'dew' or frost liners for cold weather... this became the impetus for design of double wall tent design in the 1960's.... utilizing the ideas of Buckminster Fuller as framework for modern geodesic tent designs, Sierra Designs, Marmot and The North Face began producing sophisticated double wall tents for the burgeoning backpacking movement of the 1970's and 80's.

Sierra Designs had a stellar, pyramid tent in their lineup...

a total anomoly, Stephensons Warmlite has made silnylon hoop tents for 30 years, in both single wall and double wall design, offering seriously light and compact tents....

Double wall tents touted advantages over single wall tents....warmer, keeping condensation off the sleeper, stronger in high winds, they also made tents- HEAVIER and BULKIER.

Having suffered thru 30 years of tent 'evolution', we are seeing savvy outdoorspeople and tent manufacturers returning to the simplicity and light weight of single wall tent designs.

The Black Diamond tents like the Lighthouse pictured below might be in the running for the OP if: price, durability are no object and they are looking for conveinence, breathable, incredibly small packed size and very comfortable space/weight ratio.

Seriously, like the above poster mentions, they pack up about the size of a nalgene water bottle!

Rome to Barcelona from June 11 to about July 10.

Another vote for the Seedhouse SL-1.

http://www.bigagnes.com/str_tents.ph...b91fa01a579b72

Kelty or REI?
 

Hello all,

I'm resurrecting this thread because I wasn't sure it was necessary to start another thread on tents.

I would like to do some bicycle camping/touring in the coming weeks, but am not interested in investing too much in a tent because I'm not sure at this point if I will stick with it or not. $100 seems like a lot to me and I wouldn't want to go over that. I prefer to go with a 2 person tent over a 1 person tent for the extra room for my gear ... and also in case I'd ever want to share the tent with another touring buddy. I'd like to buy local if at all possible rather than mail order because I'd like to see and feel what I'm buying. After doing as thorough a search as I know how to with the stores available to me, I've narrowed the choice down to the 3 tents listed below. (I can find the Keltys in stores about 30 miles from where I live, but would have to travel about 110 miles to see a REI tent).

Does anybody have an opinion on advantages of one over another? I like the earthier colors of the REI tent over the Kelty colors ... and I also like that the windows on the REI can be zippered shut for a little more privacy. As for the Keltys, I like that they have a vestibule area (which the REI doesn't), although I'm not sure if there's an advantage to having either a side vestibule or front vestibule. ??? They all seem to get good reviews.

Any opinions? ... even opinions on areas I didn't mention?? Thanks. Bob

P.S. The difference in weight between these 3 tents isn't a big deal to me.


Here they are:

REI Camp Dome 2: http://www.rei.com/product/731378

Kelty Teton 2: http://xrl.us/teton2

Kelty Grand Mesa 2: http://xrl.us/grandmesa2

For bike touring, I recommend a 2 person backpacking tent. It's a little bit heavier then a 1 person, but you get enough room to stretch out, and bring your bags inside, to avoid animals and theft.

I use an MSR Hubba Hubba. It's around $250. It's about 3 and a half pounds, easy to set up, and is well ventilated.

You can rig it up as just the fly and groundsheet, or as just as a bug shelter for really hot nights.

You might want to look into REI, MEC or other outdoor stores. Most of them will be happy to set up a tent for you to try out.

I've had a Squall2 for a couple years now, it replaced a worn-out 12 year old SD Clip Flashlight tent - my lightest tent up until the Squall. I used a bivy sack and tarps more than the tent - for more space, ventilation and flexibility. Good ventilation is critical for use in the humid eastern USA. Tarps give you enough space to share shelters - something you may be reluctant to do with the average "2 man" tent (usually more like 1.3 IMO).

I got the Squall 2 without the floor. I use unprinted tyvek that I cut to fit tent footprint. Then run it through the washer once to soften and make it quieter. Add velcro at corners and every couple feet to keep tyvek floor in place for quick up/down.

I used tyvek because a. it saved a little money over floored tarptent, b. i knew tyvek and had a cheap source, c. allows me to easily and inexpensively replace soiled/damaged floor, and d. the white tyvek reflects more light than gray/green silnylon, illuminates tent better at night.

My tarptent weighs under 3 lbs complete - with optional pole, tyvek floor, extra guyline and stakes. It's only an ounce heavier than my OR advanced bivy sack, and has ~40% more floor area, with more headroom, than my old Clip Flashlight - which weighed nearly 6 lbs.

The netting around the perimeter of the tarptent ventilates it better than any other tent I've tried, which was a big selling point for me. Many of the modern "ultralight" tents are sweat lodges once you zip them shut - and only slightly roomier than a bivy sack. I think these tents were tested in CO NV AZ UT where the average summer RH is 15%.

I like the low profile green/gray color of the tarptent. Hard to be stealthy in orange, red or yellow tents.

I have some silnylon tarps too - good for covering bike and other gear. Also makes a great shelter if insects aren't a problem in the area. Silnylon tarps are pretty inexpensive. If you're really frugal, you can buy silnylon for ~$6/yard and sew up you own tarp - even amateur sewers can do this. However, Campmor silnylon tarps cost only about 20% more per s.f. "assembled".

Hennessy Hammocks are nice.

Any of the three would be suitable.

This is an individual choice. Some folks want/prefer more room than others. I have used both one man and two man tents for solo camping as well as a four man tent shared between three of us for 73 days. My conclusion is that the need for a lot of space for gear is over rated. I never feel the need to bring in much gear preferring to leave it in the panniers and on the bike. I bring in my handlebar bag (with my wallet and electronics), the stuff I need to sleep, and my clothes for the morning. The rest stays outside.

I used a two man tent on my last trip and it was nice, but I would have been happy to make do with less space to save a bit more weight. I guess it really depends on how much sprawling space you want, but IMO weight is always a primary concern.

The comment about bringing stuff in to avoid animals I don't get. If animals are going to get into your bags it is usually because there is food in them. The last thing you want to do is take food into the tent. You really do not want bears (or raccoons for that matter) tearing open the side of your tent. I don't tend to worry much about theft most places I camp, but I do close up the panniers and park the bike where I can see and hear it from in the tent. I think I would hear the velcro if some one was opening my panniers.

BTW I agree that the Hubba Hubba is a great tent.

The REI is heavier and the fly doesn't all the way down. My choice would be one of the Kelty.

This is on my list:

http://www.tonystrailers.com/nomad/
I really like the concept

Thank you very much for your help and thoughts. While a lot of the tents mentioned are no doubt great, I'm really trying to stay at $100 or less. I know that I won't get the best of the best that's out there at that price, but I'm okay with that.

I'm getting the feeling there isn't a definite advantage to any one tent over another, as far as the tents I listed goes. I suppose it comes down to my own personal preference then ... which is kind of what I thought before asking. I just thought maybe there was something I might be overlooking that might have been obvious to somebody more experienced.

Thanks again!

Bob