Cycling UK Forum

It was was not me who decided that I wanted the strongest. I just want the best I can afford, as I have repeatedly stated.

But your language continues to suggest that you view "best" as "strongest", while I consider "best" to be a set of compromises between strength, weight, space and various other points like ease of pitching. If this is wrong it would help if you'd directly say so rather than keeping on about the vital importance of strength. The best you can afford is not necessarily the strongest you can afford, because a tent has to do more than just stand up.

It has to be able to do at least as well as my old tent (in other words, be able to cope with all weather my old tent did)

Which is difficult to call without knowing exactly what that weather was, but in decades of camping in the UK, including high mountain wild pitches for winter mountaineering, I've yet to see anything that needed the strongest tents available, or even the strongest that are available at the price of the cheapest Helsport tents.

If a £30 tent can do this, confidently, I would be very happy. I am confident that this is not the case though, and a 4 Season rating is my starting point for considering a tent.

You appear to be assuming I'm at odds with your not wanting a Tiger Paws. I don't want one either so I don't have a problem with that. I do think it's an excellent tent for the money (i.e., almost free) and I do think it's a good place to start for folk on a budget and who are confining their touring to benign conditions but if I thought it was really perfect I'd have bought one. As it was I spent 20 times as much on something else. The point I'm differing with you on is your apparent insistence on maximising strength, as opposed to merely getting something strong enough.

Pete.

As an addendum, since I am a sad gear junkie with a particular thing about tents, give me a budget and dimensions you want and I'll be happy to short-list a set for you that will do the stuff, with a special emphasis on ridiculously over-specified strength designed to take several feet of snow loading and days of continuous exposure to storm-force winds if that's what you really want.

Pete.

Oh deary me... you can buy 4 season tents that are not the strongest available tents. You don't need the strongest available tents for cycle camping.

I camp in 4 seasons, in 4 season tents. All my tents are 4 season tents. The strongest one is heavier and less spacious than my 4 season cycle touring tent. Why would it be a good idea to take the heavier one cycle touring?

Take a look at the Hilleberg catalogue. Every tent in it is a four season tent. Some are stronger than others. You don't need the strongest, so why pay extra for the strongest when you can have something more useful for your money, like more space or lower weight (while retaining full 4 season functionality)? The reason their selection of 4 season tents contains some that are stronger than others is some locations and activities demand the strongest tents while others can be lighter but still strong enough. Cycle touring is something where "lighter but still strong enough" is a better fit.

I am trying to help here: I want you to get the best tent for the job at hand. I do not think that is the strongest tent available, at least for cycle touring. My impression is you've decided you feel a need for the strongest tent available, apologies if I'm wrong but you have repeatedly given that impression, and it would seem not just to me.

Perhaps "I say X, you read Y" might be your turn of phrase just as much as people deliberately misrepresenting you?

Pete.

Okay, so what are the conditions you've been cycle camping in that require the strongest available tents? Sorry if I've got the wrong idea from what you've said, but that's all I've got to go on...

And once again, what conditions have you been cycle camping in that you have reason to seriously doubt a Hilleberg Kaitum couldn't stay up in, and what were you in that survived? Since I already have one of the strongest available tents on the market in my toy cupboard I'm curious as to whether I should abandon my others for a week's touring and take that instead.

Pete.

A campsite is usually a collection of tents of all sorts of qualities: waking up and seeing flat tents around you is no indication that you need a mountaineering expedition class bunker tent, just that you need better than the flat ones around you.

Waking up with your tent under snow is one thing, having your tent being exposed to several feet of snow with falls on a frequent basis with the tent as a static base camp is quite another. You're buying for the second case, but you'll only encounter the first in the UK.

There is no shortage of tents that will take winds that flatten many tents on a typical campsite and that will take being snowed on that are far, far short of the strongest available. A Spacepacker will do that, a Spacepacker is miles short of the strongest available tent.

I think your decision making process is wrong because there is no evidence you have presented that shows that the conditions you are going to encounter are anything like as bad as the conditions the strongest available tents are designed to encounter, and furthermore no evidence that many "merely" relatively strong tents aren't adequate for anything you've camped in, or will camp in. You can buy more spacious and lighter tents that are perfectly capable of taking conditions you will encounter while cycle touring.

What conditions have you encountered that my Hilleberg Kaitum won't take? A bit of snow and winds that push down family camping tents don't apply, it's been extensively tested in the wilds of Arctic Scandanavia.

If you really want to cart about spurious weight for the sake of peace of mind, well, that's your problem I guess but we're just trying to save you from yourself so you can have a bit more fun with the pedaling aspect. If you're really determined to get the strongest there is then probably a Crux Storm is about as light as you'll find for a really bombproof tent, but it's worth noting that weaker tents have been used on 8000m peaks and for polar expeditions. Do you really think you'll find comparable conditions cycle touring? The Hilleberg Soulo is a lighter (and weaker) storm tent for one that'll 'll take anything the UK will be likely throw at them and it'll cope with the conditions you've seen to date, but for the 2.1 Kg of the Soulo you could have a Nallo 2 which would give you twice as much space and still take anything you're at all likely to encounter (I know someone that uses one for ski touring in the Alps, which should be a pretty good test of a tent that needs to do snow and wind), or you could get just as much space at 1.5 Kg in an Akto, extensively used in the UK mountains in all seasons. I've yet to hear a story of one failing, including use in extreme conditions.

Pete.

David, there's more to a good tent than raw strength. I buy the best I can afford which thus far has been about the best that there is, I recently spent nearly £500 on the Hilleberg Kaitum we used for our recent Hebrides tour (http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/sohi1.htm). I could have spent quite a bit less than that and had a stronger tent... but I don't think that would make it better. The Hilleberg is a serious all-season tent that is expedition proven in far more serious places than I'll be cycling, so I know it will be reliable and I know it's a delight to use in terms of space and comes in at a reasonable weight. If a tent is strong enough then there is no point spending more on strength. There is, however, point in spending more on extra user-friendliness, lower weight and more space if the strength remains good enough.

Take a look at Hilleberg's selection of tents: they are without exception classed as 4 season tents designed to take serious conditions and tested thoroughly in Arctic Scandinavia. But not all of them are equally strong: why take a tent cycle-camping that is designed to take major snow loading when used as a polar or high mountain base camp for weeks at a time? It simply isn't relevant to cycle camping. A Hilleberg Akto is far from the strongest tent you can buy (it's only got one pole and uses very light fabrics), but it's still strong enough that people use them successfully for winter camping on mountains. It's widely held to be as good a solo tent as you'll find on the planet, even though you can buy stronger.

As for the Tiger Paws, the thing that puts me off it functionally isn't it's too weak for the job, it's that it's greatly lacking in porch space IMHO. Porch space is very good to have in inclement weather if you want somewhere to cook and store gear without getting the inner wet, so porch space is something worth spending more money on for me.

So don't get too hung up on outright strength being the only indicator of tent quality: the strongest tents really are greatly over-specified for cycle touring. Even if you don't want to go down the cheap but pretty good route of the Tiger Paws (fair enough, I didn't get one either!) preferring the expensive but very good option, there is more to a great tent than raw strength.

The Hilleberg Kaitum mentioned above joins another in our "toy cupboard", a Hilleberg Tarra which is quite significantly stronger. It has a 4 pole full geodesic structure and significantly tougher fabrics. It's a bunker-class tent, as strong as they come. We have never wanted to take it cycle touring, even though we're certainly not any sort of weight-weenies and we already had it, because it's heavier than bulkier than it needs to be for that particular job. The Kaitum weighs 25% less, has far more room, and is still strong enough. We take the Tarra paddle touring where we are more at the mercy of the weather, have far fewer choices of pitching and are using transport that is largely unaffected by weight. Both tents are expensive, high quality, arguably "best of breed". Neither is a better tent than the other in an general sense, only in certain specifics. We find the weaker of the two is actually better matched to cycle touring.

On top of that, "I know that at some point it will be needed, that or I find a Hotel"... you don't really know it will be needed. Even pitching my single hoop Spacepacker high on Ben Nevis in a gale at teh snow line I've yet to have a tent knocked down on me: I doubt you can really guarantee you're 100% bound to come upon worse. And if you do have to bail out to a hotel/hostel/B&B then that at least remains a choice in almost all of the UK. Carrying twice as much weight and bulk as you need every time you tour just on the remote off-chance you'll avoid a bail-out is, IMHO, a safety net that's far worse than just hitting the ground.

Pete.

Out of interest David, what tent do you use? And what do you think is the minimum spec for a sensible UK touring tent?

Pete.

The thing is there's cheap tents and there's cheap tents: the Pro-Action is actually a pretty solid piece of kit and well implemented, my concern in using it wouldn't be that it would disintegrate but that it was made in some horrible sweatshop and someone had suffered for a pittance to make it!

It's a solid ridge design, as has been used for decades. Pitch it tail into the wind and guy it out well and you'd need a very serious blow indeed to take it out.

I don't have one because I already had a more expensive tent (a Spacepacker), but I use the Spacepacker because it has more space (especially porch space) at slightly less weight, not because I'd be worried about the Pro Action blowing down. My other cycle touring tent is a Hilleberg Kaitum 3, not taken because it's as strong as there is but because it's as big inside as there is at an acceptable weight/bulk while being strong enough. The fabrics will have a greater tear strength than the Pro-Action but that just means they're reassuringly over-specified: the same fabrics have been used on expeditions in the polar regions and 8000m peaks.

Taking a tent that can survive the worst that might happen for UK cycle touring is, I think, pretty much bonkers. The strongest tents you can get are for unsupported expeditions to the sort of wldernesses where weather is far more extreme than the UK's and the consequences of tent failure don't bear thinking about. I take that sort of tent sea kayaking, but then I might be forced in to shore to pitch on a sheet of rock or a shingle beach and the boat is much better at taking heavy loads than a bike. If you're camping from a bike you can be much choosier about your pitches and that will take a lot of sting out of the weather. Taking the strongest tents will add to weight and bulk and take away from other things you might take, in return for something that's simply over-specified.

Look at the Saunders web page... what Robert Saunders doesn't know about tents probably isn't worth knowing and he's decades of experience supplying them for cycle tourers. The strongest models are not recommended as a good match for cycle touring...

Pete.[/i]

We're just back from our tour, report at http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/sohi1.htm

No shortage of rain over the whole trip, but we escaped without using our waterproofs: we were inside while it was really lashing down, and soft-shells were enough to keep the driech out. We had some sun too, and overall were lucky with the weather.

We shortened our original plans a bit, partly out of practice with loads up hills but mostly just enjoying being there, including camping on the beach. Note that you can do as we did and bail out from N.Uist direct to Uig on a Hopscotch 23 (we have a couple of N. Uist/Harris tickets left over that are good for a couple of weeks yet, free to anyone who can use them if they drop me a line).

Enjoy your tour Stella, we did!

Pete.

Isn't the purpose to sit in a chair?

well, I thought it might be before I had one, but in comfort terms I actually find having zero weight on my arms actually makes a bigger difference than being in a chair. One can get that on an upright, of course, but not without significant aerodynamic penalties!

So the actual point for me is primarily a comfort improvement. If you're not actually uncomfortable on an upright it might well be a moot point...

Pete.

What do you want it to do?

Most bikes are sold by functional class. You don't go and "get an upright", you get a tourer, or a racer, or a city bike, or a freighter etc.. The point of a recumbent isn't typically "to sit in a chair"... Mine (an HP-Vel Streetmachine GT) is first and foremost a tourer, and I use it because it does what I want in a tourer better than anything else I've come across: it carries luggage without affecting the handling, I have no weight on my wrists which I find much more comfortable than a standard tourer, I get to see where I'm going better. And if you're getting a recumbent it needs to be because it does something better than an alternative upright, and being a novelty will wear off.

As has been said, you do need to try things. When my wife was testing 'bents she liked the look of the Mistral on paper, but trying it out neither of us would have given it house space. You just can't tell what it will be like on paper. Similarly, specifics like handlebar style you just can't really tell in advance.

So, what do you plan to use it for? Touring, audax, city use, freight? Just like uprights, each task has quite different formats to best solve it, and there is usually more variation in 'bents than uprights.

Pete.

Inverness up to Thurso on NCN1, both ends are on the railway to make getting to/from easy. There's a wee ferry at Nigg if you like ferries...

Black Isle and the road up to Tongue past Ben Loyal are particularly fine cycling.

Pete.

hondated wrote:What intriqued me was thier bikes were like what I call Moultons you know very small wheels and something that will surely make their travels more difficult.

No, not at all. Small wheels, if combined with good high pressure tyres and a good suspension are not nearly the downside they are widely assumed to be. The rolling resistance issue is mostly made up for thanks to the suspension (so only the wheel and fork leg has to move up over a bump, not the whole bike and rider) and once you're past that small wheels are stronger, better allow an open frame which is easier to get on and off when fully laden and give nippier handling in traffic.

Having come to small wheels via recumbents and then folders, the more I ride them the more I think it's a shame they're so widely assumed to be a terribly weak link in a bike (my wife's tourer is a suspended 20"/20" recumbent, mine is a 20"/26", I wouldn't swap either for any "normal" 700c bike for touring).

Pete.

A pal has the Lidl ones and they're indeed excellent value, but anything like the quality of Ortliebs they ain't!

I like Ortlieb primarily as I find their fixings easier to use than any others: pick up pannier by handle disengages the locking catch, very neat, very simple. Similarly, letting go of the handle locks them on. None of this clicking of catches or forgetting to lock and having the panniers bounce off... But on top of that they're very, very well made and the design is an excellent example of how less can be more. That they're waterproof is just a bonus really! (though about that waterproof... don't forget that they're not going to keep the contents dry if you put, for example, a soaking wet set of waterproofs inside: you still need some sort of liner to compartmentalise if your mix of wet and dry doesn't conform to pannier-sized chunks of one wet, one dry).

Pete.

As already suggested, I'd say the fitting is less of an issue than the fabric. I use the lighter "plus" and they've still proved very robust in action, so unless you envisage really heavy treatment I'd go for those.

Other choice is roll-top or buckle. I use rolltops as they double as canoe bags, and they're also easier to temporarily over-pack, and they're a little cheaper.

Pete.