tent types (1 skin,2 skin, 3 skin...)

[yostumpy]

Ok folks still looking at tents, with a view to getting my first / and only tent.Started looking at the Colman Aravis as said before, but 2.4 kg and coffin like, and I'm 6'2". But have now moved on to Tipi tents. Boils down to 2 really

a) Hex peak V6. ( V4 nest too small for 6'2"+) Now at present they only do this as a double, or a much heavier winter single (V6e) , but speaking to Bob, at BPL, he tells me that Micheal, the tent maker, is making single nests for the V6, that will be bigger than the V4 (issue with folks 6'2"+) This will prob weight around 1.6kg all in ,plus pole. Roomy enough to get a bike in, and be sub £200.

b) Six Moon Luna solo le. single tarp type tent, but with a sewn in bath tub, doorway mesh and skirting mesh going from the top of the bath tub to the tent sides. Weight is 850g plus pole and pegs. A good bit smaller than the V6,but room for a 6'6",(or even 2 peeps at a push, and have a porch) , as used by ' Tall hiker' on you tube. Great reviews every where, and £215 plus pole.

Now 'A' is a tarp tent with a second complete inner 'nest', where as 'B' is a tarp tent with a bathtub and mesh skirt / doorway. What are the advantages of each type ( 1 skin / 2 skin ) Surely condensation will occuor any way some times, and the inner tent then serves what purpose. I've read about condensation on 2 skin tents, so then the inner gets wet as well?

Its all a bit of a learning curve for me, and at 55, its FUN.

[honesty]

I went through this recently and ended up getting the 3 man Vango Meteor 300. Its a little weight penalty to save cost (theres a 2 man lightweight version for 3 times the price!) but at 2.9kg its palatial, goes up really well, stands up to every weather I've thrown at it (including a storm on the somerset levels), and I've had no problems with condensation. I'm 5'11" and I can lie out at full stretch ands till have room either side for bags, food, etc. Very happy with this tent. I ummed and arrred about getting the 2 or 3 man version, but ended up going for the 3 man just for the extra room. I'm sure the 2 man version would be good though.

[yostumpy]

I went through this recently and ended up getting the 3 man Vango Meteor 300. Its a little weight penalty to save cost (theres a 2 man lightweight version for 3 times the price!) but at 2.9kg its palatial, goes up really well, stands up to every weather I've thrown at it (including a storm on the somerset levels), and I've had no problems with condensation. I'm 5'11" and I can lie out at full stretch ands till have room either side for bags, food, etc. Very happy with this tent. I ummed and arrred about getting the 2 or 3 man version, but ended up going for the 3 man just for the extra room. I'm sure the 2 man version would be good though.

Is it single skin, or 2 skin, as I was referring to the construction type, not the accommodation. I want a roomy 1 person tipi really. How much were they?

[foxyrider]

There is no substitute for getting in the tents and trying them out - one man's BTSSB is another's Marmite.

Over the years i've used a wide variety of tents, single, double, bath tub. These days i'm using a double skin with bathtub that comes in @ 1kg and your 6'2" would get in it with spare. The bath tub means I don't worry about drafts, creepies or rising ground water (i've told the tale previously of waking to find myself floating on a site in Switzerland!)

Condensation can be an issue but I find it varies on weather conditions/location. Generally it only affects the outer leaving the inner dry, I can take the inner out leaving the outer erected (it's an exo poled affair), you could use it as a single skin if you wanted to. Personally I'm not driven by price when selecting tents sn the current Vaude was almost £400.

So like I said before, don't rely on others choice, try the tents for your comfort, you might like coffins or prefer a palace - I certainly like space to spread out and get everything inside with a small porch I can boil a kettle in. Oh and consider packed size including the poles and how you will carry it too.

Good luck

[Warin61]

Ok folks still looking at tents, with a view to getting my first / and only tent.

How many bicycles do you have?
Good luck with only one tent... I have quite a few. err 4 at least. And thinking of another one (less weight for hiking)!

Go for a 2 man tent. I find these to be for one man and his gear.

Go for one with an inner and a bath tub floor.
The inner keeps the bugs out also helps with lizards, mice, rats, cats and dogs. The 'mesh skirt' might do this.
The bath tub floor helps keep water out.

Go for a mild green colour, not one that shouts 'here I am', you may want to be discrete from time to time.

You'll have to evaluate that with your selections, but in general those are my first considerations. Then you go for things like a pocket to put things in that you might want to find easily (like a head torch in the night).

[yostumpy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR18cJHhg7Y

here is the six moons one.

[Graham O]

Now 'A' is a tarp tent with a second complete inner 'nest', where as 'B' is a tarp tent with a bathtub and mesh skirt / doorway. What are the advantages of each type ( 1 skin / 2 skin ) Surely condensation will occuor any way some times, and the inner tent then serves what purpose. I've read about condensation on 2 skin tents, so then the inner gets wet as well?

Its all a bit of a learning curve for me, and at 55, its FUN.

Your post seems to boil down to either a single skin tent or an outer/inner design and what are their respective advantages. In good weather, a tent is easy to live in and either will do the job, but it is in bad weather when problems can occur. Condensation can occur with both constructions, but with a single skin tent with sewn in bathtub groundsheet, any condensation is inside the tent with you and you may/will get wet. With an inner/outer construction, the condensation is at least away from where you are sleeping. Furthermore any wet gear has to be left outside the single skin tent or your dry stuff will get wet. The Hex Peak, (which I'm also looking at) allows you to get your wet gear under cover and out of the rain, but outside your sleeping space.

The big advantage of single skin is speed of erection and lighter weight, but for me, these are not enough reasons to abandon the inner/outer approach, for typical temperate UK/European weather.

I may be biased against single skin tents in the UK due to a few very wet nights in a Karrimor wedge tent from the 70's. Horrendous condensation. I wonder if anyone else remembers them?

[Tangled Metal]

I've got one bike and 8 tents I think (between the family, I figure they benefit from them too so that's just under 3 each). OK I have 2 bikes. Three and that's my last offer!

Tents, you might be able to squeeze a few more tents out of me if I actually took time to look for more.

My view is eventuality you buy tents for specific needs. There will be no one tent for all eventualities if you're being as discerning as you are with bikes. Having said that I took my 32mm slick tyred bike round an mtb trail so as with bikes you can compromise.

IMHO single skin will equal waking up to the joys of mopping up before you get out of your sleeping bag. I tend to use a sleeping bag cover inside my single skin.

Single man, lightweight tents = short ppl tents only or a lot of money to get a barely usable tent for tallish ppl.

Buy a 2 man is my recommendation. Two skin as well.

BPL-UK are a good retailer. The Luxe tents they sell are good value and can have plenty of space. Not all of it is usable because of the slope I reckon but having talked to a v6 owner (a couple but it was the man who did all the talking about kit - go figure) it's a good tent. They own basic few other options and only bought it to try out. It had become their main tent for base camping and backpacking in the hills.

[Tangled Metal]

There are/were designs of single skin tents without some of the issues Graham mentions. My Force 10 vitesse is a single skin with bathtub groundsheet which does mean condensation running down the inside to the edges of the groundsheet where it mostly stayed. Not a problem because I used a micro towel and mopped it all up before getting out of my sleeping bag.

This tent also had a porch outside of the groundsheet for storing wet kit. Rucksack, boots and waterproofs went there, dry kit in the other end inside the groundsheet. Not a problem.

Where this tent scored points was the 1.3kg weight, £100 price tag, sitting up height, seriously good stability in bad weather and it easily fitted my 6'5" tall frame plus kit. I could not afford anything close to those positives for less than silly money. I couldn't fit into any of the laser series which came out after I bought this tent. The only tent I could fit into was a hilleberg atko which I missed out on the £160 field and trek deal and couldn't afford the £350+ normal price tag back then.

One last point this tent is no longer made but I believe there are other options. Single skin tents with separate bathtub groundsheet which clips on to the fly at a few key points I believe could get over the running down into the groundsheet problem plus added ventilation means less condensation too.

You can also get some light tents that can be used without the inner. This so called fastpacking style works with either simple flat plastic groundsheet or their groundsheet protector which attaches to the fly / poles. Negatives include no bathtub groundsheet but IME of wildcamping in the hills with a tarp ice never found a flat groundsheet much of an issue personally. YMMV.

[PH]

I have one tent, I only do one type of camping - cycle somewhere, sleep, cycle somewhere else - 10 night trips maximum, March to Oct, UK and Europe.
It's my forth tent since I started cycle camping, it's choice strongly influenced by opinions formed using the previous three. I had the first three over a period of two years and have had this one for twelve. My point is I think the only way you'll find out what will suite you is by trying it, but also that most tents above the one use festival type are usable for most cycling trips.

[yostumpy]

How many Bikes do I have? well 3, but havn't used 1 of them for 4 years, and 1 of then for 2 years since buying my Ridgeback world Panorama Deluxe disc brake tourer, it really is my do it all bike, including a lot of rough stuff, but not touring YET!! So I really only want one tent. Its a shame the Hex v4 isn't made the same as the Six moons, 850 g is a good weight, the bathtub is a floating type, so cond will run down out side the tub, it has a large vestibule outside the inner area. The prob with the v4 is not the tent, but the inner hanging low, in your face, and the only reason I can see for the inner is to stop your head touching the outer,that doubtless would be just as wet as a single skin, and you would have to wipe it down to packit away anyway.

[pjclinch]

Much as with bikes you don't want to worry about The one for you: in practice there's more than one answer to most questions, and while I might notionally prefer one particular configuration in actuality I could manage quite well enough with different setups.

The condensation thing... In practice any lightweight waterproof tent will get condensation, and this is most often at the outer layer because (a) vapour can't get through there and (b) it tends to be cool, at least once the sun is down. So you have a film of droplets on the inside of the fly, and these will drain downwards if they get big enough and/or someone knocks the tent. In a twin-skin or a tarp that'll be to the ground, and in a single-skin with sewn in groundsheet that'll be to the groundsheet. As noted above, the degree to which that's a problem is largely down to the occupier.
Another aspect is that the inner on a twin-skin is generally lightly proofed, so when someone trips over the guylines and knocks off loads of droplets the inner is quite capable of keeping them off you and your stuff, but with a single skin you have a one-second rainstorm. Not the end of the world, but not exactly a comfort benefit. Some twin-skins have inners with mesh roofs, so the drops come through anyway, not something I'd look for in a tent myself.

Other twin-skin advantages are if it's warm and dry and will predictably remain so for at least the night you can do without the outer for better venting but still retain bug protection. You also have the option of just using the fly, as an enclosed tarp. Either of these options will depend on the exact design, so say a Quasar, which relies on the inner to give structure to the fly, using the fly on its own isn't an option. Hilleberg twin-skins need optional-extra pole holders to use them inner-only, but it is an option.

All else being equal, a twin-skin is going to be warmer in cold weather than a single, and isn't much different if it's baking. The temperature difference isn't huge, but it is noticeable.

Some single-skin use breathable fabrics, but with the volume of a tent you don't really get enough vapour pressure to push out the moisture unless if it's bordering on a coffin, so you pay a lot more money, get a heavier tent and aren't really much ahead unless you're doing something niche like a minimalist ascent of a serious mountain. I don't see they really have much place for cycle touring (but someone, somewhere, will be using one and thinks it's the badger's nadgers, I'd imagine).

My own preference is twin-skin, but I suspect a lot of that is it's just what I'm used to. I would put general arrangement of space, and if I'm happy with it, well above twin or single skin (or fly-first/inner-first/all-in-one pitching, etc.)

Pete.

[andrew_s]

Now 'A' is a tarp tent with a second complete inner 'nest', where as 'B' is a tarp tent with a bathtub and mesh skirt / doorway. What are the advantages of each type ( 1 skin / 2 skin ) Surely condensation will occuor any way some times, and the inner tent then serves what purpose. I've read about condensation on 2 skin tents, so then the inner gets wet as well?

There won't be much difference, assuming that the nest for A is all mesh, or virtually so, except that the skirting mesh on B may help channel any condensation running down the tarp into the bathtub.
There will always be some nights where you get condensation - those on which the grass gets covered in dew.

Condensation happens where there's (relatively) warm air contacting cold material. Mesh doesn't stop air circulation so warm air just passes through a mesh inner and you get the condensation at the tarp, or alternatively, if there's a breeze, you get cold air coming in underneath fast enough that the inside air never gets warmed up by your body heat.
With a Euro-style 2-skin tent, if you open any outside vents and cover inside mesh panels, you'll get condensation on the inner (assuming the vents or mesh areas are big enough to be useful). If you close outside vents and uncover inside mesh panels or open the inner door, the air between inner and outer will warm up, so there won't be any condensation on the inner, but there will be on the outer.

[pedalsheep]

Graham O wrote
I may be biased against single skin tents in the UK due to a few very wet nights in a Karrimor wedge tent from the 70's. Horrendous condensation. I wonder if anyone else remembers them?

Ah, the Karrimor Marathon, I remember it well. Bought with my first ever pay packet from working in the Mr. Kipling cake factory during a bank holiday week while still at school. Based on the Whillans box as used on Everest so I thought it must be marvellous! Unfortunately my experience of using it was the same as yours, put me off single skin tents for life. There are a few pictures of it in Robin Adshead's classic book 'Bikepacking' (about 40 years before the term became trendy!)

[pjclinch]

Vents... two cheers for vents. They're good and useful, but about a tenth as good at reducing condensation as marketing departments want you to think.

Pete.