jordo_99

Ok, for starters I've always had the DIY bug but in the past year or so really fell in love in making tents and outdoor gear. The past month or so I've been seriously looking into the possibilities of a start-up but I couldn't think of a niche until recently.

I'm thinking about making bike-specific tents and very light (talking 5oz or so) bike covers.

Here's the first idea I'd come up with.


Uses the front tire and a frame pump for support...would weight close to 1 pound and pack down to roughly the size of a water bottle.

Hoping to gauge interest on this. I think the bike covers would be very interesting as they'd likely be about the size of a pop can when packed down. Tents on the other hand would be more fun to design and make but most people probably prefer a tent they can use without a bike...which is why I've also thought of the idea of making it pole-compatible or even having a "tube casing" that you can put a spare tube in if you don't want to take off your wheel.

Going to be catching a plane in 3 hours so I won't be able to reply back to anything for a while.

-Jordan

GeorgeBaby

Have you seen the Topeak Bikamper One Person Bicycling Tent?

fietsbob

i need to sit up without getting out of the tent, so I need minimum a meter of clearance.

xyzzy834

I don't like mosquito repellant and I really, really don't like mosquitoes. I generally head inside the comfort of my tent with a good mosquito netting around sunset. Once inside for the night, I read or write until about dark. Then I sleep. I need a tent tall enough for me to sit comfortably.

Many times, I want one or more of my panniers inside with me. If it's raining, I want all of them inside or under the fly. I need a tent with enough room for me and my gear when I want.

I'm sure there are minimalists on a tighter weight budget than me that would like small pack size and light weight of your proposed tent.

Cyclebum

What you show is basically a bivy.

What's hard, no, impossible, to find is a 22-24 sq ft, single wall solo, side entry whose walls can be raised in hot weather for ventilation, and still provide mossy protection. And yes, I too like to sit up in the tent. Less bulk, for me, is more important than weight, tho they do usually relate. And, a high quality, snag free zipper.

Tents are very personal affairs, like saddles.

jordo_99

I just recently finished making something very similar to a nemo meta2... you think more people would be interested in something like that?

I guess I do know that people prefer a more spacious tent... Just trying to find a reliable way to replace the poles with cycling equipment... maybe it's better to use one taller pole and have the wheel on the shorter, foot end.

staehpj1

Using a wheel in the pitch means that you do not have use of the bike once camp is pitched. So no riding into town after pitching the tent. Some may be fine with that, but it might be a big negative to at least some.

zeppinger

I am unwilling to take my front wheel off of my bike every night in order to save 1/2 pound. I dont like frame pumps either. I think the idea of a bicycle touring specific tent is a good one but it need not incorporate the bicycle in the structure. I think the Topeak is incredibly gimmicky and doesnt save much weight. There are a LOT of tents already on the market that work very well for all sorts of different kinds of touring so I guess the key is to find a sweet spot somewhere. I would gather that if you wanted mass appeal the tent would need to be free standing, be at least 1.5 man possibly 2 since we like our extra space, have a large vestibule that will fit a full set of panniers, maybe a double entrance so we can get around our stuff but also in and out of the tent? be under 4-5 pounds and $200-$300.

fietsbob

There already are some get out of the tent , before you can put your shoes on , tents, out there .

indyfabz

+1. And no riding on a day off without disabling the tent. As for the frame pump for support, that would require you to, well, carry a frame pump. With the popularity of the Road Morph G and similar pumps, seems like you would be limiting your market.

Your drawing is eerily similar to a Walrus tent a woman on my x-country tour started out with. We jokingly referred to it as "the coffin." In Fargo, she ditched it for something more spacious.

Bacciagalupe

I'll have to pass.

• Way too small.
• I like to use my tent for hiking as well as bike touring.
• Why would I want a dirty wheel holding up my tent?
• Pumps aren't anywhere near standardized enough in size for this to work.
• Bivy sacks are around 2 pounds. Even the Tarptent Contrail is around 2 pounds, and that's about as light as it gets. Getting it down to 1 pound sounds rather unlikely.
• Topeak basically beat you to it by a few years, with the Bikamper Tent: https://www.amazon.com/Topeak-Bikampe.../dp/B000FIE3NW

I won't say it's impossible to come up with something new, but it won't be easy. There's a lot of competition in the 1-person tent space.

bud16415

I’m also an amateur inventor and I like the way you are thinking outside the box. I have toyed around with some tent ideas similar to yours just in my head and did some searching on line for tents with inflatable frameworks. Like you I was thinking about using tubes inserted into tent pockets as a soft frame. I have even thought about an air mattress floor as part of the bivy.

I didn’t think of using spare tubes but that’s a great idea as I believe everything carried should have multi uses whenever possible.

I don’t think I would like removing the wheels to set up camp as others have mentioned. Given the right pump I don’t think I would mind inflating some framework though, as long as I could easily get the air out the next day.

Last fall I started building another sleep system but it’s not quite ready for public humiliation yet. Haha. But as a tease it requires a bike and you sleep off the ground.

Keep up the effort from your drawing I can see you are into this and that’s 99% of the battle coming up with something new.

Tourist in MSN

Agree. Restaurants in the evening (after you set up camp and showered), evening grocery store runs for more coffee, day trips, etc., make such a design impractical.

But I wish my tent had room for a wheel in the vestibule, the vestibule on my tent is too small. The reason I would like that is that if I am camped in an area where I am concerned about theft of the bike in the middle of the night, I would hope that a bike with only one wheel is less likely to be stolen than a complete bike.

In the 70s I bought a interesting thing, sort of a tarp with mosquito netting on two ends. (If my memory is correct, it was a Gerry Pioneer but I can't state that I recall the model name with any certainty.) I used that in forested areas a lot in the 1970s and 80s with a space blanket as a ground cloth. You could pitch it like a double A frame tent (if you remember those) between two trees, the mosquito netting hung down on each end to the ground from gravity and there was no door on either end, just the netting. It could also be converted to a tube tent but I never used it in that configuration. A friend of my that sold camping gear said that a lot of bikers were buying them, then they only needed one pole or one tree on one end, the bike became the "tent pole" to support it on the other end. As a tube tent you could only fit one in it, but pitched the way I did it would hold two people comfortably.

staehpj1

Yep, and it was a pretty big flop anyway.

Not necessarily, but for those who want to get down to a pound the answer is a tarp and DWR bivy or bug bivy. And again those markets are pretty well covered. As an example you could use:

1. Integral Designs Siltarp 1 (5'x8' and 7 ounces)
2. Either a Titainium Goat Bug bivy or Ptarmigan Bivy (4.3 or 5.8 ounces respectively)
3. Add stuffsacks, a few ultralight stakes, some line, and a pole and you are still well under a pound.

That isn't for everyone though.

juggleaddict

https://tarptent.com/rainbow.html is this not what you speak of?

juggleaddict

There's a lot of opposition here, but at the same time, everybody is different. If there was a perfect tent for bike touring then everybody would have it, but there are different preferences and priorities.

I'm sure that tent would fit someone's style. personally I think it would be great for short 2-3 day tours where you wanted to take as little as possible, and you could do a bivy, but a tent really does provide more room, even if you can't sit up, you can read on your stomach.

There is a reason tent makers don't make only 1 tent, I would think the most important thing to do when designing a tent is to make sure your design fits a niche that hasn't been filled. Either that or build something that just straight outperforms the competition of the same niche, which is very difficult to do; tents have come a long way in the past few years.

personally I think it's more useful to the community to design something that fills a gap in the tent market. . . just make sure you do it right else someone else will improve on the idea and you're out your inherently wonderful design.

juggleaddict

one more thought. With the design you first show, I'm assuming this is single walled. You may have some major issues with condensation if you didn't erect the tent to allow wind to come through the tube. On nights with little wind condensation would be unavoidable. You could have vents down the sides and this would allow you to put an awning on the side of the tent that also made the whole construction stronger but would mean more to stake out.

jordo_99

That's for all the comments. the biggest hurdle to going the route of hiking tents is that I'm extremely impressed with what Henry had done with tarptents and there is so much variety that the only way I could complete is to find some magical materials that weight less and cost less without compromising durability.



that said, I'm out of town for a few days but I'll work on coming up with some more spacious designs.

I've been specifically liking into the idea of trying to find a way to have the tent supported by spare tubes or poles to give it more versatility.

Hearing that people really value their vestibule space is very helpful and I'll try to incorporate the different suggestions that have been made too.

skidder

Could you match these tents for light-weight and roominess?:

https://www.tarptent.com/#

I've got an older model called the Cloudburst that looks like the Squall, except it has an oval front. Weighs just over two pounds, easy for two persons to sleep in, and center height is about 42". Never used it on a bike tour, but I have used it extensively on backpacks over the last 10 years in spring-summer-fall. Ventilation is pretty good, but they won't hold up in really windy weather (+30 MPH). Original cost was about $200, and its been well worth the cost.

Cyclebum

Well, I'll be. Not impossible to find afterall. Basically my hacked Spitfire with some mossy netting inside the door flap. 'Bout same weight, maybe less bulk. Like the Rainbow, the Spitfire needs at least 4 stakes. I'd like a door flap on each side for maximum cross ventilation.

juggleaddict

The double rainbow has 2 doors, and 2 vestibules. It's about the same tent but it's 10 inches wider, and about a 1/3 of a lb heavier. : ) You do get that extra ventilation though.

Bacciagalupe

Yeah, Nemo already has something along those lines....

https://www.nemoequipment.com/nemo2012-moto1p-tent

shipwreck

Probably the best way to go from an entrepreneurial viewpoint would be to make a tent that you have imagined, set it up in the back yard, sleep in it, make a few more till you think you have something that fills a need not being met, and go on a tour to really test it. Get home, look at the extensive notes you took on what worked and what did not, and make some more. Then tour with them. When you really think you have something good, let some others use it, get feedback from them, and apply it.

That can be expensive, so mabey you can fund it with the bike covers. Sell them on Etsy or something.

I make a lot of my own gear, but not with a mind to sell. I just make what I want that is not being offered. Sometimes I have an idea and see that someone else is doing it, so I buy thiers, saving myself a lot of headache. If someday I make something that everyone goes crazy for I will think about selling the pattern or something.

shipwreck

I think that is really cool, but would be a little worried about long term durability. I don't make enough dough to buy something that might not last for years of practical abuse.

staehpj1

I don't know first hand how well they hold up, but the guy who set a round the world tour speed record used a Nemo. I think it was the Gogo Elite though. It must have been fairly durable to stand up to that trip.

https://road.cc/content/news/59716-in...rld-record-kit