Tents Designed for Bike touring

[BikeFreak]

When touring in the US, particularly in the upper states during summer, a free-standing tent is very important to me. Why? You will find many options a long the way where you can put up your tent on a covered concrete slab. This is gold when you are dealing with serious condensation problems due to dropping dew points on grass.

[BikePacker]

[

On a particularly windy night in Arizona, the vestibule guy line broke and my gloves left home and never returned.

In that they may well have been 'favorite' gloves of yours John,
my thinkin' is that each probably at least waved g'bye to you
as they were caught up in their departure?
: ).

[hikerjer]

I guess I've never reallly understood the need for a bike touring specific tent. It seems that any decent backpacking tent, and there are many, as long as it does't require trekking poles to be set up, will work just fine. As I mentioned earlier, from personal experience I'd recomend the Big Agness Copper Spur HV UL. Two doors, two vestibuless and two people although it would be tight. Great for one person and gear. The drawbacks are two fold. The zippers are really difficult to use without catching in the fabric and the floor material isn't particularly robust. Still a great tent if a little expensive.  The tent poles fit in my Ortliebs just fine when packed at bit of an angle separate from the tent itself.  No big deal there. Worked well. As for REI tents, I've had several and bang for the buck, they are hard to beat. Never had an issue with one.

 Have a great tour.

[wildtoad]

It's been a while since I've been in the market for a tent, but for touring I've always used backpacking tents and they work out great. With bikepacking being all the rage, maybe there are some specially designed tents that make sense, haven't looked. But in the past, some "bike touring" tents have struck me as pretty flawed from a design standpoint.  YMMV.

I've been using my current NEMO tent for 9 years now. It's been awesome, rock solid, zero issues.  It has a great vestibule, came standard w/ nice features that are often optional (e.g., gear loft), weight is decent, and the 2P size is pretty perfect for a solo bike tourer.  The specific model that I have has been discontinued.  But I've been very impressed with design/durability of the tent, and will definitely consider another NEMO when it comes time to replace.

[froze]

I guess I've never reallly understood the need for a bike touring specific tent. It seems that any decent backpacking tent, and there are many, as long as it does't require trekking poles to be set up, will work just fine. As I mentioned earlier, from personal experience I'd recomend the Big Agness Copper Spur HV UL. Two doors, two vestibuless and two people although it would be tight. Great for one person and gear. The drawbacks are two fold. The zippers are really difficult to use without catching in the fabric and the floor material isn't particularly robust. Still a great tent if a little expensive.  The tent poles fit in my Ortliebs just fine when packed at bit of an angle separate from the tent itself.  No big deal there. Worked well. As for REI tents, I've had several and bang for the buck, they are hard to beat. Never had an issue with one.

 Have a great tour.

I'm confused by what you said, you said you don't like using trekking poles for a tent, which I fully agree with you on that, but then you said you recommend the Big Agnes Copper spur HV UL, and on their website it showed the tent using trekking poles to hold up the awning. So do you not use the awning or are they making the tent different now requiring the trekking poles?  https://www.moosejaw.com/product/big-agnes-copper-spur-hv-ul-2-person-tent_10482508

[Armigerouz]

I also buy my backpacking tents at REI, they have good quality products and I can assure you that.

[hikerjer]

"I'm confused by what you said, you said you don't like using trekking poles for a tent, which I fully agree with you on that, but then you said you recommend the Big Agnes Copper spur HV UL, and on their website it showed the tent using trekking poles to hold up the awning." ---

Good question. The Copper Spur I have is an older model that came out prior to the current model which has an awning supported by trekking poles.  My older model doesn't have an awning and therefore, trekking poles are not needed. The new Copper Spur that requires trekking poles for complete setup may not be appropriate for bike touring for the obvious reason that you probably won't be taking trekking poles on a bike tour.  At least, I woundn't. I don't know if you can still get the Copper Spur without the awning or not. I would hope so. Actually, the awning seems like a bit of a gimmick to me. 

[Susanne]

Hello Together
i had a similar problem on many of my bike tours. Unfortunately i didn't find an ideal tent and therefore i changed my search. I found a great article about carrier bags. It is in german but can be easily translated with programs like DeepL and they even added their favorites.

https://www.fahrradbook.de/gepaecktraegertasche-test/


I find the bags much more practical.

[ezdoesit]

Hi,
Read through all the reply's but have you ever thought about a backpacking hammock.?
I have the Hennessy and love it versus a tent.
Used mine for my last thru-hike of the AT and much better then sleeping on the ground plus you don't have to look for a flat spot just some trees .
Just saying and some fruit for thought.

[TCS]

I wouldn't take a hammock across the US, but, you know, maybe that's just me.

[TCS]

How is a "bike touring tent" different from a backpacking tent?  Hmm.  Well, if anyone in the tent industry is listening, I'd like shorter pole sections.  My saddlebag is ~44cm wide, so preferably shorter than that.

While cycletouring, I've pitched on soft sand, gravel, concrete pads (and caliche soils just as hard!), gym floors, and folks' back decks.  I'm a big fan of true free-standing tents.

[hikerjer]

 "just some trees" - but you do have to look for trees.

[misterflask]

I use a Eureka Solitaire.  I'm constantly shopping for a better tent but the Solitaire's endearing trait is that if when you unzip the fly you're looking at the stars and I'm addicted to the view.

I went and measured it and the bag it comes with packs about 20" long.  The original poles are crappy and destined to break, so I had replacements made by some guy out there on the internet.  The replacement poles fold to only 14" long, so I could pack it considerably shorter. 

In a quick internet search I didn't find the guy that made my poles, but the vendor I found would customize #segments/folded length.