SA_SA_SA wrote: ↑19 Dec 2022, 12:48pm
pjclinch wrote: ↑19 Dec 2022, 12:13pm
... doctor .....the fly as well to add 2 more doors.....
The helm 2 fly is specified as having 2 doors, so no mod required for it.
But the Spacepacker has 4.
SA_SA_SA wrote: ↑19 Dec 2022, 12:48pm
pjclinch wrote: ↑19 Dec 2022, 12:13pm
......
I've never really understood in this thread why folk are so keen on trying to "prove" the Spacepacker is an obsolete design that's been left behind. ...
I wasn't, I thought I was sort of doing the opposite, but I do prefer to sleep in line with the hoop, so suggesting a modern version provides that as an option or instead or keeps same fly shape but otherwise mitigates the inners edge low height doesnt seem unreasonable to me, even if that ability as a mere option would require the plus sized fly. The fact that no modern manufacturer has simply cloned the unpatented transverse Spacepacker design, even after it was no longer made and the Saunders company gone (so no toes to be stepped on) always seemed strange to me: the smaller shorter pyramid tents and laser/aktos (still too low for me,) would seem to indicate lots of people don't mind a lowish inner over their face, so that doesn't seem to explain it.
The option to move the inner so you sleep a different way relative to the pole sounds nice, but in practice any given buyer is only likely to want to use it one way, and then they've paid to compromise their tent so they can move things around to a different setup they don't like so much. Devil tends to be in the detail, and what sounds easy on paper tends to be less so in reality. I think you'd be much better off spending the effort on optimising one orientation or the other.
The outdoor/cycling world is full of designs that were dearly loved by many but went because ultimately not enough people were buying them to make them financially worth making any more. That's not the same as weren't good, or weren't "modern". Tents in particular are compromises and you're pitching for a mix of good/bad/indifferent that really works for some target audience. The Spacepacker was very popular initially in giving a tent with, well,
space at under 2 Kgs that would fit in a rucksack without filling it up, and now there are a
lot more of those on the market that do some things better, others not so well. Those of us who are big on the things the Spacepacker does genuinely better than the current crop (like rolling back all 4 doors on a nice day) are happy with it the way it is but if I wanted to make money making tents I don't think I'd convince anyone that replicating it now constituted a business plan. People will choose from a test lie (where you are struck, literally, by how close the inner is to your face), bullet-points like "taped seams" and ultimate low weight, where using over twice as many pegs as anything else will count against you (though of course it also makes it harder to blow down in a gale). If someone's going to clone something it'll be something perceived as a market leader now, not a respected but niche product.
Rather than seeing it as "but it would be better with a stepped inner like the Akto" you can look at the Akto and say
that would be better if it had a more aerodynamic profile for high winds. And so on. A stepped inner is just an option with its own inherent compromises, as are Spacepacker features like 4 doors in the fly.
Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
