Rick

Tourist in MSN: I saw a tent another member of the forum was using on an overseas trip. It is a four man tent made by HYPERLITE. With the outer tent and the half inner The tent weighs less than 3 1/2 pounds and you can roll a bicycle in the half you are not sleeping in. I looked at reviews and found another company that makes the tent pole and pegs. I spoke to them and they will make a custom pole with more sections so I can fit the tent pole in my panniers. With this setup you put up the main body role the bicycle in hang the half tent floor with the bug screening. So if the outer is being rained on you can pack the inner half so it is not wet. And with half the tent for gear and bicycle garage prying eyes should have a harder time of trying to steel. Sparky and bear spray also help with this. It is very expensive but also exciting to me. I get to sleep with my bicycle.

Tourist in MSN

If you want a garage for your bike, go ahead. But my touring bikes expect to be rode hard and put away wet. If I treated them too nice they might get obstinate.

I have bought generic tent poles from Asia on Ebay, then cut the sections of them to the lengths I needed. The tent in the photo below was designed for backpacking to use two trekking poles, but I cut two poles that are short enough when folded to fit in my front pannier. On poles like that, I bought rubber feet for trekking poles, put those feet on the pole so the pole does not concentrate too much stress on the tent fabric. If the pole was too small for the rubber feet to fit snuggly, wrapped tape around the pole to make it thicker for the foot to fit snuggly.



The tent above is my favorite tent for touring, I think I first used it in 2017, used it so far on three trips that I can remember, the photo above is from Bay of Fundy from a seven week trip. I think the tent is now out of production, Big Agnes Scout Plus.

But it is not a self supporting tent, that can be a hassle when you are trying to put it where you can't use tent stakes. I had to jam twigs between planks below to serve as stakes. Photo below is from Florida Keys, a state park with hike in sites on platforms in the mangroves.




It is a single wall tent, lots of condensation inside, but it works well as a solo tent where I am in the middle of the tent where the ceiling is high enough above me to sit up on the end.

I saw two other backpackers a week ago on my backpacking trip with backpacks made by Hyperlite, they were happy with them. I did not see their tents.

ADDENDUM:

I cut aluminum tent poles for my trekking pole tents, not carbon. The poles I used range from 8.5mm to 11mm, generic tent poles from Ebay, shipped from Asia. Also bought the trekking pole rubber feet from Asia on Ebay.

BikeLite

I think 3F Ultralight is the maker of the Asian tent. They have a website but their links are to alie express

Tourist in MSN

Using your units, I am 182 cm, my head and feet touch the netting in that tent on an air mattress about the thickness of yours, but that does not bother me. That however does distract some people enough that they do not like the tent.

Mine is branded 3F, that brand does not appear to include ground sheets, some brands do. On several other tents I just use a heavy duty piece of plastic sheeting so the lack of ground sheet was not a concern to me.

I think I have purchased only one ground sheet for my collection of tents, that I purchased as a separate item because that tent can be set up as a shelter without the internal netting tent body, but the ground sheet is needed to hold poles correctly to the fly/shelter.

Thanks for posting, I was curious how that two person version would work. I have several two person tents, thus my choice to buy the one person lighter version.

Rick

I believe there is less chance of bicycle theft with the bicycle in the tent. Around 3 1/2 pounds is also very light for a four man tent. I have an Exped Venus heavy duty tent that weighs over 11 pounds. It is a self standing tent and I can put the bicycle in it with the front wheel off.

c_m_shooter

Where are you camping that theft is an issue?

Jim246

Flashbacks from basic training in the marines! Rifle goes in your sleeping bag at night, as woe betide a prowling member of the training team steals it at night...

Not sure I would like to share a tent with a bike though :-)

staehpj1

I have never been one to bring much of my gear inside even when I had a big tent. Panniers typically stayed on my bike for the duration of the tour when I used panniers. So it would be fine for touring for me size wise.

If I were in the market for a tent for touring or backpacking I'd be tempted to give this one a try. My old favotite Eureka Spitfire 1 (no longer in production) was similar in size price and just a few ounces heavier. The need to carry a pole would make up for part of the weight difference. I'd probably just carry one trekking pole (I have a single pole that I use as a monopod for telephoto photography when not on tour).

BTW, mention of that monopod raises the topic of photo gear. One of these days I will blow the UL weight budget and take some high end photo gear. At least I have opted for micro 4/3 (Olympus) stuff in recent years. Cell phone cameras have gotten good enough that I have resisted taking dedicated camera equipment and busting the weight budget. I figure that it really would need to be a trip where the focus was photography to justify taking more. Some casual shots during rest stops don't justify taking more than the phone for me. On the other hand, micro 4/3 gear greatly reduces the load to the point that you can get an incredible range of capability in a couple pounds of gear, so if photography was the focus of the tour it could make sense and maybe still be ultralight..

waddo

Not sure why saving a kg or two would be important with bike touring. Safety and comfort are more important. Hiking, on the other hand . . .

Tourist in MSN

I think we have completely opposite philosophies on bike touring. I think you bike tour to ride your bike as many hours a day as you can, with brief amounts of time spent resupplying and sleeping. I on the other hand see my bike as my means of transport to enjoy nature as I roll through it on two wheels. I enjoy the time off the bike as much as on the bike and I often take a day or two off for inclement weather or sightseeing. But I think you are on the bike every day and often wild camp to maximize your hours on the bike while I try very hard to find a campground with showers and running water.

On a rainy morning, I want to completely pack up three of my panniers in the tent before I strike the tent to pack into the fourth. Thus, I want a tent that can hold my four panniers that carry want I want on my trips while you want the lightest and fastest bike practical, a bivy sack works great with your bikepacking gear. Nothing wrong with that, there are a lot of people that do not want to be on a bike at all when they travel and if that is what they enjoy, good for them.

I am not sure which tent you meant. If you mean the single pole one like the white one in the photos in post number 20 above, I have very little to add that I have not already said. But I will say that the tent in the photo was a net tent with separate fly, the fly clips onto the tent. Thus, you can take one or the other and it is less likely you will touch the fly and get wet from the condensation than in a single wall tent.

If you mean the double pole orange and tan one in post number 27 above, that is an older Big Agnes Scout Plus. Big Agnes made a series of three with the Scout being the lightest and no vestibule, the Scout Plus that I have with the front vestibule, and the Super Scout that had a really big vestibule. The Super Scout vestibule was big enough that it uses two poles at the front of the tent. I checked the Big Agnes website, looks like they still make a version of the Scout with no vestibule, but have dropped the other two. They specifically list it for two people, but I really think it is best as a one person so you can use the middle of the tent and avoid touching the ceiling which will often be coated with condensate.
https://www.bigagnes.com/Scout-2-Platinum

I bought the Big Agnes tent after my Iceland trip. I really liked my REI Nite Lite tent that I used in Iceland and on some other bike tours before that, but it was an older tent that had older and heavier materials. At seven pounds, I decided I needed an upgrade after that trip. That said, I used that seven pound tent on my canoe trip a few weeks ago, as the extra weight on a canoe trip really does not matter much.

It looks like Big Agnes recently decided to make tent poles that fold up short enough to pack in a pannier. I did that four and a half years ago.
https://www.bigagnes.com/Gear/Tents/Bikepacking

I also use one trekking pole when backpacking, not two. But mine is not designed to use as a monopod. I used a foot bridge railing as my "tripod" for this photo.



I am sticking with cameras and not phones for my photographic needs. I have several DSLRs but at their weight and fragileness, I do not use them on bike trips. Biking, my go-to camera is a seven year old waterproof Pentax WG-3. That was the last of that model under the Pentax name, Ricoh that owns Pentax put their name on later versions of that camera. It is a waterproof point and shoot. And if I want a lot of zoom for wildlife, I have an even older Pentax W90 that has a lot of manual settings with a very powerful zoom that I bring as a second camera.

From my X90 on my Everglades and Florida Keys tour:

zandoval 

Due to health I no longer do the camping thing but have allot of experience doing it under multiple conditions. Today's bivys are fantastic, light weight, and cheap. I really cannot emphasize enough the utility of effective tarp use. A light weight tarp big or small is a very important tool. Use it for cover, camouflage, warmth, rain, shade, hammock, sail... Yep... Very important...

10 Wheels

Love my Colman Tent. Holds all my stuff. Great in a Rain Storm.

KC8QVO

Interesting tent. For a mostly straight down rain it looks like it would work well. After several seasons' use inspect the seams. If they are starting to separate re-do the seam sealing. And do coat well with a waterproof/water repellent spray like Water & Sun Shield from Scotchgard.

I've hunkered down for some bad weather events (passing fronts) both cycling and backpacking that, personally, I would never want to be in that type of tent in. The fly is pitched too high. There is a good reason for a full coverage fly that gets down very close to the ground - all the way around. Even with that I've used all the extra guy lines at times to stabilize the tent. That does make a big difference.

As for the water repellent spray - the Water & Sun Shield is what I've used on all my tents the past year. My Mountain Hardwear Hammerhead 2 was set up last summer (of '20) and we got hammered with storms. We had a house to duck in to and ride out the night in so we did - good thing. I found the fly on the Hammerhead 2 leaked really bad. Had I been on a "non-car-camping" type adventure with no other shelter to get to I would have been up a creek. So before I did my Ohio to Erie trip last Fall ('20) I did both a seam seal job (picking and scraping off the old seam seal material) and good coating of Water & Sun Shield. It took lots of time to do - especially the seam sealing. However, it was well worth it. I will probably do another coat of the Water & Sun Shield after this season. I haven't used the Hammerhead 2 yet, we've been car camping with my 10x14 cabin tent a few times, but so far no bike trips or backpacking trips this year.

No matter how you slice it, having a leaky tent is a problem on a trip. Having water inside the tent - such as from putting the tent away wet and setting up wet - isn't really much of an issue. It is getting more water coming in that is. You can always set up your sleeping pads on a damp tent floor, but if its falling from above and gets your bedding and clothes wet that is a game changer - especially in the cooler to colder weather - no matter how the water gets in there - either by coming through the fabric, through poor seams, or blowing up under the fly and coming through the mesh. And don't forget the floor - and do pitch in an area that isn't likely to have run off flowing through, or in a low spot that floods/swamps.

GhostRider62

OP was asking about 4 day bikepacking trip with the implication that he wanted to go light. That mission is different than classic full on bike touring tweeks or months on end.

My trusty old Moss Starlite keep me dry in the most rainy climates over many tours and was worth the extra 0.75 Kg. But if I was going out West in dry season, maybe a dyneema tarp or simple bivvy would be sufficient. Is bike touring more about riding your bike all day or is the bike just a vehicle to get to you camping. Some love to camp.....not me. Lighter and simple are better for me if the climate warrants. The only wrong is cold and wet.

staehpj1

You are right at least to some extent. I suspect I manage to enjoy the people and the country a bit more than you might imagine though even with most of the day spent riding. I still manage to meet the local folks, sample the local food, and enjoy the scenery. I am often surprised that when I compare notes with other riders who seem to be taking it easier mileage wise, that in some cases they may not have taken in much of what the country has to offer. I generally manage to have a rich experience meeting interesting folks and seeing interesting sights.

When I did pack heavier and used panniers, things came in and out of the panniers as they were used so things generally stayed mostly packed. I guess that is kind of a weird approach, but it meant packing wasn't a big event.

Yes that one.

I own a crazy array of photo equipment ranging from large format, to medium format pro stuff to several generations of 35mm slrs, to several generations of digital. Most of it has been unused for decades. I was serious enough to have studied and gotten an AA degree in protography, did an internnship with a fairly well know pro photographer, and was a part time pro for a while. These days I putter around a little with Olympus micro 4/3 gear mostly for general flowers, nature, and bird photography around home. Most of the pictures I take are around the yard like this barred owl. While I am amazed with the capability of phone cameras, it would be nice to have the Olympus and a couple lenses along for shots like this. The imagage stabilization makes shots like ths hand held shot possible even with the 75-300 (150-600 equivalent) super telephoto and the body and lense are only a pound and a half and quite compact. Adding a wide angle to short tele zoom and extra batteries, charger, and some other stuff takes the whole setup up to 2.5 pounds. So it really isn't too prohibitive.

The owl image is cropped from quite a bit larger image.

Tourist in MSN

That might be cropped, but it still is a great shot. I can't get that resolution when cropping my point and shoot waterproof camera.

That reminded me of this one.


Not cropped but everything I post on this website is photo reduced to a small number of pixels. This is from my Pentax X90 with a strong zoom.

staehpj1

Very nice.

That said, for most point and shoot stuff cell phones can be pretty good. This is from 2013 and is a cell phone pic. I don't recall if the phone was new at the time, but Phones have gotten better in the mean time.

I don't know how well it would blow up for large prints, but it looks sharp and stands up fine to the usage I need for most touring pics (journals, posts here, etc.).

JaccoW

If I that is the model I remember it to be the Eureka Spitfire Solo has been reborn in the Nigor PioPio (European high-end subbrand of Eureka). Though the modern version is made from silnylon and weighs a mere 1100 grams (2.4 lbs)

staehpj1

It doesn't look like exactly the same tent. Similar but not identical. The spitfire had two poles.