Pop-up tents

[randomblue]

Thanks for the tip! I will definitely be looking at warm showers and I'm also considering camping on the outskirts and cycling in for day trips or travelling in by public transport if that works out cheaper! As I said I'm also open to wild camping once I'm a month or so into the trip and am a bit more comfortable with the routine. I have an emergency credit card so if something bad happens like the tent breaking or I got any kind of ill and needed to stay in a proper accommodation for a couple of days I'm not completely screwed but I'll be going back in September to my final year of uni and having just paid off my credit card and overdraft during my placement I really really don't want to start off my already stressful final year in any kind of debt if I can help it!

I get that it's not going to be all blue skies and sunshine but as I said my budget is limited and there's not a lot I can do about that! As I said before it's not like I'm buying a £10 pop up tent from a super market and I'm shopping around a lot to look for tents which were originally £150 or more but are now cheaper due to new models etc. The whole point of this tour for me is to explore Europe within that budget and I'm already cutting out several thousand pounds by doing a bike tour rather than inter-railing. I totally understand that the tent is important and I will probably have at least some bad weather, but as long as it's waterproof and fits me and my paniers inside that's pretty much the extent of what I need from it. I'm very possibly going to ditch the tent before I fly home anyway as I'm jsut flying back with the bike and hand luggage and unless there's a very rare bad weather spree in Italy and South of France in August/early September it shouldn't even matter if it's starting to have minor problems towards the end because there's a good chance I'll just sleep under the stars with my roll matt, sleeping bag, liner and mozzie net.

If I come across weather thats THAT bad that it's going to completely destroy the tent I get the impression that theres a good chance this would also be the case even if I do spend more on it and in that case I'd rather spend less and buy a replacement, than have to ditch soemthing I paid several hundred pounds for! You said yourself "I've had failure of poles on expensive tents in europe in summer due to high winds" so whats the point in shelling out 4 times more for something that could also fail?

[hamster]

Take a look at the Jack Wolfskin range - the Gossamer is as minimal is things go but has stood up well for us - including some ghastly weather on Hadrian's Wall last year. It's really solid, and you can often find it around £80 or less.
I think your plan for heavily discounted tents is a good one. If you look around you might even find and ex-demo or shop soiled one with cosmetic defects which will be great value.
Personally I think you will be fine. Yes, you can get exceptional weather wherever you are, but 90% of the time you will be fine with an £100 tent.

[randomblue]

Thanks for the suggestion! I haven't yet come across that range so will definitely have a look into it! =)

[BE1]

The Vango Apex, the Vaude Taurus or the Eureka here

http://www.blacks.co.uk/equipment/tents-camping/tents/2-person-tents/

would do a servicable job for you

[profpointy]

I would get a proper tent not some toy pop up thing. That said, despite being a bit of a tent snob myself, and at a stage in life where I can afford nice kit (Hillerberg = which are fantastic, albeit brutally expensive), there are some great tents at surprisingly low prices - which are essentially copies of proper mountain tents, but cheapened here and there. I'd have thought £100=£150, perhaps a bit less if there's a deal on should get something OK. As others have said, French campsites in Summer is not the South Col of Everest, nor even Glen Coe in February, so something OK should do, if you take care on pitching it and so on. Needs to be double skin with proper flysheet, and after that, with some judgement and care, you should be able to get something OK quite cheap. Avoid the complete joke single skin kids' play tent / festival tent and should be oK

[randomblue]

Thanks for all the suggestions and tips!

I'm currently looking at these 2 options as the main competitors:

Coleman Pictor X2 - 3.35kg but has a much more spacious porch

Vango soul 200 - 2kg without much of a porch but should be just enough to stuff a bag in either side.

Also have several vango and coleman ones I've found on ebay in varying models which I'm tracking and might make some bids on if the prices stay low =)

[jamesgilbert]

My total budget for the trip is only around £2500 and that needs to cover the bike, tent and up to 140 days worth of food/campsites/other accommodation and sightseeing.

It might be interesting to start a thread in the main touring & expedition forum about this budget. After a quick search, it's not a topic that seems to have been discussed much and it is quite an important aspect of longer tours!

[niggle]

I'm looking at second hand or discounted end of line options for a decent tent and several of the ones I've come across were RRP £150+ but now selling at £50-60.

Yes it is a good time of year to be buying tents, if you can stretch just beyond £60 you can find deals like these, both with decent materials including alloy poles:

http://www.sportsdirect.com/robens-chal ... e=78314590

http://www.leisureoutlet.com/camping-an ... tAodS1kA1w

EDIT: just spotted you are considering the Pictor X2, it is a bit cheaper on Ebay than the Amazon price of £120: I got one for £80 inc P+P a fortnight ago, and still you can get them for £92 with the postage: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/30089362 ... 80&ff14=95

[jamesgilbert]

Yes it is a good time of year to be buying tents

I can't believe no-one's done the winter of discount tents joke yet

[randomblue]

Thanks for your suggestions!

Yes, I can stretch a little bit over the £60 target and both of those you suggested are models I've found on auction on ebay, along with the pictor X2 =) They all finish in the coming week so I'll be bidding on each of the three as they come around and see how it goes! I did some more research and came to the conclusion I would prefer a fly-sheet first style in case of bad weather so have come down to the following 4 options in order of preference:

Robens Challenger 2 - 2.2kg, 95cm headroom, one porch along entrance and a storage cubby at foot of tent, alloy poles - ebay auction or £85

Coleman Cobra 2 - 2.05kg, 77cm headroom, porches either side and aluminium poles - best price: ebay auction or £63

Vango Tempest 200 - 2.9kg, 85cm heardoom, one decent porch and alloy poles - best price: ebay auction or £84

Coleman Pictor X2 - 3.35kg, 95cm headroom, huge porch and alloy poles - best price ebay auction or £85

So basically I'll be getting whichever happens to go cheap on the auctions and if that fails will probably just go for the Robens since they're all pretty much the same price and the extra headroom will probably be worth the extra £20!

[niggle]

Thanks for your suggestions!

Yes, I can stretch a little bit over the £60 target and both of those you suggested are models I've found on auction on ebay, along with the pictor X2 =) They all finish in the coming week so I'll be bidding on each of the three as they come around and see how it goes! I did some more research and came to the conclusion I would prefer a fly-sheet first style in case of bad weather so have come down to the following 4 options in order of preference:

Robens Challenger 2 - 2.2kg, 95cm headroom, one porch along entrance and a storage cubby at foot of tent, alloy poles - ebay auction or £85

Coleman Cobra 2 - 2.05kg, 77cm headroom, porches either side and aluminium poles - best price: ebay auction or £63

Vango Tempest 200 - 2.9kg, 85cm heardoom, one decent porch and alloy poles - best price: ebay auction or £84

Coleman Pictor X2 - 3.35kg, 95cm headroom, huge porch and alloy poles - best price ebay auction or £85

So basically I'll be getting whichever happens to go cheap on the auctions and if that fails will probably just go for the Robens since they're all pretty much the same price and the extra headroom will probably be worth the extra £20!

Robens quality is a bit better than the rest IMO.

[randomblue]

Yeah that was definitely the impression I got too =)

One question though... I'm not sure I'm I'm going nuts but I just found the Robens challenger 2 for £75 and was about to go ahead and buy it when I realised it's pre-ordering to be available in about 3 weeks. Which is fine for me but I also then realised that the RRP on the new 2014 version is just £90 rather than £140 as I'd seen it on other sites so I checked the specs and discovered the newer, cheaper one was also heavier, bulkier (pack size) and about 35cm shorter length way when pitched. I kind of thought new version would mean improvements not 3 steps backwards?! Am I going crazy or is there something I missed?

[Sooper8]

Yes it is a good time of year to be buying tents

I can't believe no-one's done the winter of discount tents joke yet

Hoho, that's a good one. Never heard it before but will be trying to shoe horn it into conversations tonight.

[fluffybunnyuk]

Having just come back from camping in 50mph winds and pouring rain, I can safely say the one piece of kit I wouldnt skimp on is the tent. Try "nearly new tents" on ebay, i think theyre a subset of amc group that make vango tents. Got mine from them at 33% of £180 . Made a good tent a viable buy.

Sat inside my vango mirage 300 with the wind howling, and the rain hammering down, drinking hot soup, eating pasta dish dinner, playing electronic chess I thanked god I didnt choose a cheap "festival" tent.

mmm cycle camping...lovely

Emma

[Sweep]

I saw that tent on sale at an ultra competitive price a while ago but couldn't really justify buying another tent

It looked very good as a semi-geodesic design rather than my problematical Vango Spirit 200+'s tunnel design.

But hasn't it been discontinued?

If so, that rather concerned me.

You recomend it?

You took it by bike?