Vaude Power Lizard

[foxyrider]

I'm thinking of sinking some cash into new canvas for 2013 (my Taurus Ultralight is over 10yo and i just fancy something new!).

Has anyone actually used one of these http://www.backpackinglight.co.uk/produ ... p?PageID=1 ?

Any feedback gratefully received

[martin113]

I have one Foxyrider but I notice it is some time since your original post so I won't launch into a review for you in case you've already gone and bought something, but if you are still in the market I'll gladly give you my impressions of it.

[andymiller]

I've used mine for a total of about 7 months nightly use over the last couple of summers. In general I've been very pleased with it - although I have some minor niggles such as the stupid pointless useless titanium pegs that come with it as standard. I'm probably going to replace it this year as I'm not sure I can expect it to go another 5 months of continuous use out of it. The contenders are either the Nordisk Telemark or another Power Lizard (although I might just consider an Exped Mira).

[foxyrider]

I have one Foxyrider but I notice it is some time since your original post so I won't launch into a review for you in case you've already gone and bought something, but if you are still in the market I'll gladly give you my impressions of it.

I'm looking for next summer so yes please!

[martin113]

The main thing about it is the internal space. I am 5foot 8inches. I sleep with my feet right down at one end and my head is about 3/4 of the way up the tent, so the inner ceiling is way above my head and nowhere near my face, and I have loads of room on the floor beyond my head to store stuff. It is wide as well. The inner tent wall opposite the door is v shaped and so when I lie down there is plenty of room to lay out the clothes I have just taken off alongside me. One end of the inner is wider than the other, so there is more storage down there In fact there is far more room than I need for the amount of stuff I take. The height is good. I sit just inside the inner door cross legged with my bottom raised on my blow up pillow, cooking a meal in the porch. The top of my head is firmly against the material of the inner but it's not uncomfortable. I could do with 5cms more but you can't have everything, but less would be really uncomfortable. The porch is vast for a one person tent. It runs the whole length of one side and is wider at one end than the other. I can store a full panier, all the cooking stuff and food in the porch and have no trouble getting in and out of the outer door.

Ventilation: I have posted about this elsewhere viewtopic.php?f=42&t=67957&start=15. The ventilation panels at the ends are too small and too low down, but the double zip on the outer door means I leave a gap for air flow through the door and I use a clothes peg to peg it back to the width I want. The inner is a really light very breathable material and so it never feels clammy inside with the inner door done up. A huge portion of the inner door is mesh and I thought this would make it a cold tent, but it wasn't a problem when I used it in very cold conditions in April. In August I slept with the inner door open and rolled back and there was never a problem with condensation.

The tent goes up quickly and down very fast, though putting it up I do tend to fiddle from end to end to get the tension right and the alignment right. Andymiller finds the pegs useless but I have to say I have used this tent in lashing rain and gales, even ice and hail, and the pegs did fine, even in boggy soil they didn't work loose. It needs another two pegs as there aren't enough to do the lateral guys, which is a cheap trick of keeping the catalogue weight down I suppose. Also it is worth pegging the inner and outer separately at the corners on the door wall, as it gives the inner groundsheet a better shape, so that's another two pegs. There is a natty tensioning system so I found it very stable side to side in high winds.

The finishing and the stitching is excellent, there are some nice details, like the tag on the ceiling of the inner to hang a light, the big wide pockets inside the inner for little valuables. The hydrostatic head measurements for the groundsheet and the fly are higher than many tents like this and that implies that they should be quite robust material. The zips are good and all double openers.

I tried a TN Laser Comp beside this and it was like being in a coffin, it made me feel ill with claustrophobia and it felt clammy and airless because it was so plasticy, but then that tent is quite a bit lighter so you have to decide what you want. But then the pegs with the Laser are really riduculously tiny so buying new pegs would just bring the weight back up.

I got this tent at a good price last November at I think £245. If you scour the internet in the dark days of November and December you might get a bargain, especially as not many people in this country seem to have discovered it yet. Compare the floor plan to the Laser Comp and the Akto and you'll see what I mean about the space. In short, I love my Power Lizard and it does me just fine and at 1100gms it's perfect for me.

Happy hunting.

[andymiller]

My sixpennyworth.

The VPL does offer a brilliant weight to living-space ratio. I 'traded down' to it from a Laser Large, but I honestly can't say I've missed the extra space. It is quite definitely a one-person tent. OK you might be able to use it for two for race events or special situations but for regular use? I doubt it.

It's difficult to describe the headroom as anything more than adequate though. I'm also 5 foot 8ish and I do find it irritating that I can't sit upright without my head touching the tent inner even at it's tallest point. OK you learn to live with these things and clearly they are part of the trade-off you make for such a light tent, but yes I will be looking closely at how much headroom the Nordisk Telemark will give (although all we know about the Nordisk is that one of the tent design team is 6 foot 4 - whether this means that the tent actually has more headroom is another matter).

I have found condensation to be an issue on occasions - on cold nights n the mountains with a heavy dew. But I tend to take the attitude that if you want your inner tent to be warmer than the air outside then you are going to get condensation.

I have been impressed with the way the tent has stood up to extended use - in general I thought the design was better thought out than the Laser.

I have had issues with the waterproofness of the groundsheet, in that while it does seem to prevent water passing through via pressure there does seem to be a certain amount of capillary action at work especially when combined with pressure - so there would often be dampness on the underside of my sleeping mat. Again this might have been an effect of ageing of the tent, or dirt on the lower side of the groundsheet.

I thought the list of repairs and modifications I have made might be useful: I have

- supplemented the pegging loops with short guylines. I tend to camp in places with very hard and stony ground so this gives me greater flexibity with choice of pegging points;

- put cloth 'spinnaker tape' around the hangers for the centre pole - the material had started to delaminate and fray (UV damage?);

- put patches on places where I had caught the zip on the outer. I really appreciate the fact that Vaude have put in a flap to protect the zip, but it is very easy to catch unless you are super-super careful;

- broken the centre pole (bear in mind this is after a long period of sustained daily use). Fortunately I had a pole repair sleeve which did an excellent job of getting me through several weeks. I can't remember whether this came with the tent or whether I bought it separately (it's also made by Vaude). definitely worth having one;

- had to learn how to nurse worn zips. The zips on the VPL are all reasonable-quality YKK, but everything wears. This of course would only be an issue if you planning on using the tent on an extended tour;

- added shockcord extensions to the doobries that attach the inner tent to the outer tent on the non-door side. One thing that I was finding particularly irritating was the tendency for the inner tent to get stuck to the outer tent on that side. Moving the inner tent slightly towards the door side seems to have solved this problem.

This isn't meant to put you off by any means - the VPL is on my shortlist for my next tent - but just to pass on some experience after living with the tent for months.

As far as the supplied tent pegs are concerned, they may work in boggy ground, but I've spent most of this summer in the Italian Alps and Dolomites and most of the campsites I've stayed in have had pitches on what seems like compacted aggregate for which the standard pegs are useless. Next year I will probably opt for using titanium nail pegs as standard. this may not be a problem for other users. I do wish that the tent manufacturers would simply get together and agree to quote the weight of tents without pegs and sell pegs as optional extras - so those people who want ultralight pegs can buy them and those of us who don't are forced to pay for them.

I've mainly used the tent with 8 pegs. I've only once felt the need for the side guylines, which are useful in a gale.

[foxyrider]

cheers, some useful hints there.

My previous experience with a Taurus Ultralight has been great - broke both poles at different times but given the abuse before hand - flattened by wind on several occasions but otherwise no issues with materials etc. have caught the fly in the zip a few times but never damaged the material - maybe i'm lucky! Longest trip will be about 3 weeks and that won't be daily site changes.

I'm just about convinced now!

[martin113]

Thanks for the helpful hints on what to do when my Power Lizard starts to feel the effects of age, Andymiller. My tent came with the repair pole sleeve by the way, which I make sure I always take with me.

[Sweep]

Somewhat worried I might send this off-topic.

Interesting points above about tents and pegs and suppliers from andy mller above. Agree. Also irritated by companies supplying shoddy token pegs which bend in no time forcing you to spend extra money on proper ones anyway.

Smiled at the comment on Italian campsites - it rang true from what I've seen of Sardinian ones - maybe someone could start a directory of Italian campsites with grass.

[andymiller]

Smiled at the comment on Italian campsites - it rang true from what I've seen of Sardinian ones - maybe someone could start a directory of Italian campsites with grass.

It's not the grass that's the issue - it's what's underneath. In mountainous areas what looks like a meadow can have hard-packed aggregate underneath - if you have fairly poor-quality land then turning it into a campsite is going to be a more attractive proposition.

[foxyrider]

Smiled at the comment on Italian campsites - it rang true from what I've seen of Sardinian ones - maybe someone could start a directory of Italian campsites with grass.

It's not the grass that's the issue - it's what's underneath. In mountainous areas what looks like a meadow can have hard-packed aggregate underneath - if you have fairly poor-quality land then turning it into a campsite is going to be a more attractive proposition.

Not just Italy, i've had similar problems in Bavaria (Chiemsee) and several sites in Austria, even with my sleep mat they were darn uncomfortable and my usually trusty Vaude stake pegs struggled to get into the surface. (a couple were seriously 'blunted' and had to be replaced) So far all the sites i've used in Switzerland have been graced with a good thickness of soil.