Cowsham wrote: ↑9 Aug 2021, 11:07pm
You could not stay dry in a tarp in sideways heavy rain even if it didn't become a kite.
This depends on how you configure it - a tarp can be pitched so that it is pegged down to the ground on three sides (or two sides of a triangle) and it is possible to pitch it thus to withstand a lot of wind without turning into a kite too. One of the benefits of a tarp is that you can use it differently according to the weather conditions and the site conditions. Ultimately, it is a versatile single skin tent. Don't get me wrong - most of the time, I like to have my Vango Mirage Pro on a site with a washroom nearby and loads of gear but I reckon there are circumstances when a tarp and minimal gear would be a good choice (and I hope to put this to the test before the year is out).
I bought a Mirage 200* (not the Pro version) but haven't yet camped in it. It's billed as free standing isn't it? Do you guy it?
Seems like a really nice tent though test putting it up initially caused me a few issues and you do I think need a fair old bit of room to lay out the poles before you erect the tent.
(My Robens Lodge 2 is free standing - comes with guys but have never guyed it, even in a storm)
* I think the tent has been renamed by Vango. Can't remember what as.
Sweep wrote: ↑10 Aug 2021, 10:51am
I bought a Mirage 200 (not the Pro version) but haven't yet camped in it. It's billed as free standing isn't it? Do you guy it?
Seems like a really nice tent though test putting it up initially caused me a few issues and you do I think need a fair old bit of room to lay out the poles before you erect the tent.
(My Robens Lodge 2 is free standing - comes with guys but have never guyed it, even in a storm)
Yup, free standing - one of the reasons that I like it: I can turn each side to the sun and tip it so that the underneath is facing the sun too, to dry it off before packing it away. I don't always guy it, I tend to if it's windy or if I have time to kill and the fancy takes me but I don't think it's ever needed it. The poles do seem to require a lot of room but this can be mitigated to an extent by keeping them folded and slotting them together as you feed them into the sleeves on the fly - it's a bit more fiddly though. The biggest challenge for me putting it up is getting the poles correctly positioned in the sleeves - especially the "bent" pole centred above the entrance - it's not a big deal though. Next biggest challenge is when taking it down - getting the poles out of the sleeves without them coming apart inside the sleeve - again, not a big deal. It's the only flexible/bendy poled tent I've used to any extent so I don't know how this compares to others. It isn't a problem, just something I have to bear in mind - it's still a good tent that goes up and comes down without any real hassle.
Disclaimer: Treat what I say with caution and if possible, wait for someone with more knowledge and experience to contribute.
Sweep wrote: ↑10 Aug 2021, 10:51am
I bought a Mirage 200 (not the Pro version) but haven't yet camped in it. It's billed as free standing isn't it? Do you guy it?
Seems like a really nice tent though test putting it up initially caused me a few issues and you do I think need a fair old bit of room to lay out the poles before you erect the tent.
(My Robens Lodge 2 is free standing - comes with guys but have never guyed it, even in a storm)
Yup, free standing - one of the reasons that I like it: I can turn each side to the sun and tip it so that the underneath is facing the sun too, to dry it off before packing it away. I don't always guy it, I tend to if it's windy or if I have time to kill and the fancy takes me but I don't think it's ever needed it. The poles do seem to require a lot of room but this can be mitigated to an extent by keeping them folded and slotting them together as you feed them into the sleeves on the fly - it's a bit more fiddly though. The biggest challenge for me putting it up is getting the poles correctly positioned in the sleeves - especially the "bent" pole centred above the entrance - it's not a big deal though. Next biggest challenge is when taking it down - getting the poles out of the sleeves without them coming apart inside the sleeve - again, not a big deal. It's the only flexible/bendy poled tent I've used to any extent so I don't know how this compares to others. It isn't a problem, just something I have to bear in mind - it's still a good tent that goes up and comes down without any real hassle.
Thanks for the reply freiston.
Vango often does seem to use long sleeves, which can make things tricky, particularly if a pole should ever break and you need to extract it without tearing the sleeve/tent. I prefer tents with partial/separated sleeves, but Vango do make some very nice tents at good prices. So all in all a big thumbs up.
With fully sleeved poles the method of retracting them is to position yourself at the closed end, grab further up the sleeve with one hand and push through from the end of the pole with the other hand. It’s 1000x easier to guy out a tent before a storm, as opposed to during. Guying out is critical to prevent pole breakage. A lot can happen in the time you’re asleep. Looks like a strong structure and would make a strong, light and spacious fly and footprint only pitch.
Sweep wrote: ↑10 Aug 2021, 11:18am
Vango often does seem to use long sleeves, which can make things tricky, particularly if a pole should ever break and you need to extract it without tearing the sleeve/tent. I prefer tents with partial/separated sleeves, but Vango do make some very nice tents at good prices. So all in all a big thumbs up.
On the other hand I prefer a full sleeve because it's less faff to pitch, particularly if implemented inna Hilleberg stylee with the sleeve material selected specifically to make putting it through easier and a closed end to make it easier for one person to do quickly. That is, of course, part of the how much??!! you pay for one...
Poles are more vulnerable before the tent's fully pitched, so cutting the pitching faff should decrease your chance of breaking a pole to start with.
One of the (many) things I like about my TN - No sleeves, not a single one. simple clips, which apparently also aids air flow. I don't know what the theoretical advantage of sleeves is, they seems to be used from the cheapest to the most expensive, whatever it is I haven't once missed not having any.
As we seem to have drifted from the theme of this picture thread, here's a gratuitous one of mine to try and bring it back on topic. It's not a recent photo and the tent has probably appeared in this thread before, maybe more than once, but I'm a one tent type of guy and this one has done me 16 years, though it's now on it's second fly and one of the poles isn't original...
TN Solar 2.2 2 Farm field campsite by Paul, on Flickr
PH wrote: ↑10 Aug 2021, 1:12pm
One of the (many) things I like about my TN - No sleeves, not a single one. simple clips, which apparently also aids air flow. I don't know what the theoretical advantage of sleeves is, they seems to be used from the cheapest to the most expensive, whatever it is I haven't once missed not having any.
Whether they're good or bad depends on the implementation, and at times the relative merits or otherwise will effectively be a bit moot, so clips with an inner-fist pitch making possible rubbing points for the fly is hardly a deal breaker if your fly persists in being waterproof, and clips on external poles meaning distinct stress points rather than a continuous, better distributed seam loading can be dismissed if everything holds together happily.
On bigger tents clips can be awkward to do up/undo where they're a long reach, but a lot of the time it's swings vs. roundabouts.
Since we want pictures, here's one with both clips and sleeves: the sleeves hold the bases of the poles in place at the right angles and you finish off the top with clips.
Good points above. From an older Hilleberg catalogue introducing their new Yellow Label series of tents
“With the goal of maximizing light weight without sacrificing too much strength, we experimented with a variety of solutions. Initially, we put the poles on the inner tent, but still with a linked outer tent. After a number of such test tents literally flattened during wind testing, we adopted our proven system of linked but separable inner and outer tents, with the poles on the outer. This solution performed so much better, that we knew it was the ideal choice for these tents.”
nsew wrote: ↑10 Aug 2021, 4:28pm
Good points above. From an older Hilleberg catalogue introducing their new Yellow Label series of tents
“With the goal of maximizing light weight without sacrificing too much strength, we experimented with a variety of solutions. Initially, we put the poles on the inner tent, but still with a linked outer tent. After a number of such test tents literally flattened during wind testing, we adopted our proven system of linked but separable inner and outer tents, with the poles on the outer. This solution performed so much better, that we knew it was the ideal choice for these tents.”
The devil is in the detail though. There are lots of MH Trangos, TN Quasars, TNF MTN25s, Crux Storms etc. etc. that have survived blizzard conditions on 8000m peaks with poles on the inner, but in those cases the designers weren't trying to link the inner and outer and thus forcing their hands about how to get the poles in place.
I personally find my Tarra is a better tent than a Quasar... but "better" isn't straightforward and objective. For example, in a real blow it's also quite a bit noisier than a Quasar, which has a much cleaner aero profile without all those poles, clips and sleeves out in the wind.
nsew wrote: ↑10 Aug 2021, 4:28pm
Good points above. From an older Hilleberg catalogue introducing their new Yellow Label series of tents
“With the goal of maximizing light weight without sacrificing too much strength, we experimented with a variety of solutions. Initially, we put the poles on the inner tent, but still with a linked outer tent. After a number of such test tents literally flattened during wind testing, we adopted our proven system of linked but separable inner and outer tents, with the poles on the outer. This solution performed so much better, that we knew it was the ideal choice for these tents.”
The devil is in the detail though. There are lots of MH Trangos, TN Quasars, TNF MTN25s, Crux Storms etc. etc. that have survived blizzard conditions on 8000m peaks with poles on the inner, but in those cases the designers weren't trying to link the inner and outer and thus forcing their hands about how to get the poles in place.
I personally find my Tarra is a better tent than a Quasar... but "better" isn't straightforward and objective. For example, in a real blow it's also quite a bit noisier than a Quasar, which has a much cleaner aero profile without all those poles, clips and sleeves out in the wind.
Pete.
Those are heavy duty, multiple pole, mountaineering tents where climbers split the weight. Hilleberg designed their Yellow Label range, “With the goal of maximizing light weight without sacrificing too much strength.......
nsew wrote: ↑11 Aug 2021, 10:27am
(of Quasars etc.)
Those are heavy duty, multiple pole, mountaineering tents where climbers split the weight. Hilleberg designed their Yellow Label range, “With the goal of maximizing light weight without sacrificing too much strength.......
Quite so.
My point was that you don't need to make a tent with the poles on the outside to have a strong tent, and that you're at the light end doesn't actually change that. There's nothing intrinsically weak about having them on the inner, even if it might be the case that if you stack the deck elsewhere (e.g. by requiring an all-in-one pitch with linked inners and fly that one person can put up in a gale) that's a bad way to do it.
I personally prefer Hilleberg's approach to others which is why I'll pay the high ticket price, but the fact is there are plenty of other designs being successfully used by happy campers.
This is my new tent, a Wild Country Zepheros 1 Compact replacing a damaged Vaude Taurus Ultralight. I hope I'll get it to pull more taut when I'm used to it! The door opening and porch aren't as good as the Taurus, but it's about 500g lighter without much compromise on inside space. The poles are straight and come with a repair tube - reassuring as it was a broken preformed pole which has done for the Taurus.
Attachments
“My two favourite things in life are libraries and bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting anything. The perfect day: riding a bike to the library.” ― Peter Golkin
The tent is modelled on the Hilleberg Akto so these instructions are largely applicable.
Of note is driving pegs in at a roughly 45deg angle and getting them all the way in.
Reinforcing tie out points with a sewing machine is well worth it on Wild Country (and other manufacturer) tents, this is where they typically fail in moderate to high winds.
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope You'll Still Find Me At The Top Of A Hill Please forgive the poor Grammar I blame it on my mobile and phat thinkers.
