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Making the right choice of
tent can be important to successful and enjoyable camping, however
tents like all gear is very much a personal thing so make up your
own mind as to what you require from a tent. Here are a few tips
from our own experience that might help when making your
choice:
- There are many types of tent design but they
all tend to be derivatives of four basic principles, tunnels,
domes, geodesic and ridge all have there advantages and
disadvantages.
| Type of Tent |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
| Hooped Tunnel |
Large living area for the weight,
designs can easily accommodate large vestibules for
storage and cooking in bad weather. Tend to be pitched
outer first with the tent hung inside, so very easy to
put up. |
Not quite as strong as the Geodesic designs, but
many are used for 4 season camping and depending on the
fabrics/poles used and the guying system, can still be
very strong and stable in high winds. |
| Dome |
Can give you a large living area with
plenty of height with reasonable vestibules for storage.
Tend to be pitched outer first with the tent hung
inside, so very easy to put up. |
Tend not to be as strong and stable in high winds
due to their higher profile, but good for valley
camping. |
| Geodesic |
Very strong shape that can spill the
wind and if designed well with good materials and poles
can be virtually bomb proof! |
Inner pitching first can mean that the inner can get
wet when pitching in heavy rain. Due to the geodesic
shape the vestibules tend to be small and so some
designs can lack storage areas. |
| Ridge |
Strong shape that can spill the wind and
with 'A' frame rather than single pole and good guying
can withstand most that is thrown at it. |
Due to the ridge design the living area isn't as big
as tunnels or geodesics and the vestibules tend to be
small and so lack storage areas. |
- When making your choice consider carefully
where you will be cycletouring, do you need a tent designed for
high mountain situations? We currently use a Hilleberg Stalon GT
for cycletouring which weighs the same as our Terra Nova Quasar,
we prefer the Stalon over the Quasar as it gives us far more
room and in cycletouring we are mainly using lowland campsites.
Certainly if we were to go mountaineering in the Scottish hills
we would without hesitation take the Quasar as it has a smaller
footprint and we would happily sacrifice the room for a stronger
tent that we know from experience can withstand Scottish
mountain weather.
- Consider the size of the awning is there
enough storage space for all your panniers and gear, you don't
want to have to leave them on your bikes.
- Look at the collapsed pole size when
selecting your tent, as smaller sized poles are easier to pack
and carry on a bike.
- Most modern tents use synthetic materials
which are extremely waterproof, this is great to keep out the
rain but it also means that any perspiration, steam from the
stoves and water vapour from the ground in a large vestibule
will condensate on the outer. To minimize this tent designers
put in vents, therefore make sure that these are well
positioned, strong and capable of being closed off in bad
weather.
- Make sure that it has a good full sized
outer fly sheet, some cheaper tents have little or no fly sheet
that protects the doors of the inner tent in bad weather.
- If you are on a tight budget go for the best
quality that you can afford, a good tent makes the difference
when it comes to an enjoyable camping experience. There are so
many tents out on there on the market these days and it's
difficult to compare them as manufacturers use different names
for the fabrics and materials that they use. The old saying "You
get what you pay for" is to a certain extent true with tents, as
those priced at the lower end achieve this price through a
compromise in the quality of construction and in the materials
used. I have seen some cheap tents where guying points have
ripped out through poor stitching, buckles breaking through the
use of cheap moldings and poles breaking in strong winds due to
the use of weaker glass fibre poles which don't flex as well as
good quality aluminium poles.
- When making your choice look for a
manufacturer that gives a life time or at least a 5 year
guarantee for their products.
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