Camping with a motorcycle tent help

[welshjohn]

Hi guys

Need some help from you seasoned campers.Would like some help and suggestions for a lightweight tent. suitable to carry on a motorcycle.Needs to be a big 2 berth or even a 3 with standing room.It will be getting used quite a bit so would need to be of a decent quality if possible we have a budget of about £100 max.

Thank you all from a first time camper

[scdan4]

msr do some corking stuff.

Not cheap - i bought a second hand hubba bubba on fleabay for about a hundred - it has been faultless and performed brilliently under fairly trying conditions.

One must (that was unintentional at the time) - make sure on whatever you get you can put the outer up before the inner. When you're wet, and its raining, that will make all the difference in the world!

[smifffymoto]

We have 3 hubba hubbas,even my 11 year old can put hers up in under 5 minutes.They're not cheap but quality isn't.

[welshjohn]

Thank you for the recommendation of the hubba bubba's will have a search to see if i can find a 2nd hand one..

[Lunablack]

When I was biking, we used to use a Kyham... Quick erect tent....

It lasted for years and years and we spent loads of time touring France and Switzerland with it....it packed down nice n small, and it was very quick to put up....
About a minute to get it out of the bag and up... And then another 10 minutes going around pegging it down...

I can remember pulling into a campsite in the middle of a thunderstorm, and other campers standing in amazement at how quick me and the wife got the tent up, and chucked all our gear in it

[welshjohn]

what sort of size do the kyhams pack down into?

[Lunablack]

welshjohn said:

what sort of size do the kyhams pack down into?

Couldn't give you an exact size as it was some time ago I'm getting old

But it was a 4 man... Which meant it had plenty of room for the 2 of us.... And packed it would easily fit on my Givi rack on my ZZR and later on the tiger....

[cwis]

Or get one of these and take whatever you want...

[welshjohn]

cwis said:

Or get one of these and take whatever you want...

Don't think the 600 divvy would like that very much

[YorkshirePudding]

I've a couple of Khyam tents that I used when out on the bike, these two,

http://www.khyam.co.uk/detail.asp?p=333&produc...
http://www.khyam.co.uk/detail.asp?p=335&produc...

Always found them dead easy to pitch and neither have given me any trouble in nearly 14 years of use though not enough room to stand up in either one that never really bothered me.

[matty_doh]

I was looking at similar tents for a while (hoping to do some touring next year) and ended up buying a Vango Omega 350 for £126 (Was at Yeomans for £140 less a 10% 'Event Weekend' Discount - they seem to do these fairly regularly). Feels decent quality (First proper test this weekend) and I liked the large porch area for storing wet kit and whilst not tall enough to stand up in, you can sit on a camping chair in the porch.

The Omega 350 comes in around 5.5kg, and the smaller 250 (which is also cheaper) is 4.25kg but obviously not as roomy. I found the most useful thing was to go to a large camping shop with a 'tent field' to decide which size I wanted as it can be difficult to gauge scale using just dimensions and images/videos.

[mudster]

YorkshirePudding said:

I've a couple of Khyam tents that I used when out on the bike, these two,

http://www.khyam.co.uk/detail.asp?p=333&produc...
http://www.khyam.co.uk/detail.asp?p=335&produc...

I'm glad I clicked your links. I was about to post the exact same tents.

[JM]

welshjohn said:

Hi guys

Need some help from you seasoned campers.Would like some help and suggestions for a lightweight tent. suitable to carry on a motorcycle.Needs to be a big 2 berth or even a 3 with standing room.It will be getting used quite a bit so would need to be of a decent quality if possible we have a budget of about £100 max.

Thank you all from a first time camper

Very few if any two person tents have standing room, especially if you want high water-proofing and full groundsheets.

Decathlon have a 4 man pop up tent for £99 that you can nearly stand up in, with a decent porch, but it doesn't fold down too much as it is about the size of a bike wheel in diameter.

You will probably need to either forget the standing room, or the 2-3 person size to get anything in budget.

[aw51 121565]

scdan4 said:

... make sure on whatever you get you can put the outer up before the inner. When you're wet, and its raining, that will make all the difference in the world!

A very important point!

Having to wipe the floor of the inner tent to dry it before putting anything in the tent is not the best use of your time and energy at that point ...

[Lunablack]

On the Kyham range of easy ups..... The inner and outer of up as one.... They're joined on the inside... And the hinged rods are already fitted too

Basically you just walk around locking the hinge in place... It takes seconds to get the tent up, then a couple of mins to peg it down and that's it... Job complete

[Tuscan Rat]

matty_doh said:

I was looking at similar tents for a while (hoping to do some touring next year) and ended up buying a Vango Omega 350 for £126 (Was at Yeomans for £140 less a 10% 'Event Weekend' Discount - they seem to do these fairly regularly). Feels decent quality (First proper test this weekend) and I liked the large porch area for storing wet kit and whilst not tall enough to stand up in, you can sit on a camping chair in the porch.

The Omega 350 comes in around 5.5kg, and the smaller 250 (which is also cheaper) is 4.25kg but obviously not as roomy. I found the most useful thing was to go to a large camping shop with a 'tent field' to decide which size I wanted as it can be difficult to gauge scale using just dimensions and images/videos.

I just bought the Vango 250 recently. Had its first outing this weekend at Le Mans and I am very pleased with it. You can pack it away with the inner tent and ground sheet still connected very easily into the bag. Also very light with Ally poles.

[welshjohn]

Cheers for all the very helpfull reples.I'm of to buy a tent tommorow.

[mojitomax]

matty_doh said:

I was looking at similar tents for a while (hoping to do some touring next year) and ended up buying a Vango Omega 350 for £126 (Was at Yeomans for £140 less a 10% 'Event Weekend' Discount - they seem to do these fairly regularly). Feels decent quality (First proper test this weekend) and I liked the large porch area for storing wet kit and whilst not tall enough to stand up in, you can sit on a camping chair in the porch.

The Omega 350 comes in around 5.5kg, and the smaller 250 (which is also cheaper) is 4.25kg but obviously not as roomy. I found the most useful thing was to go to a large camping shop with a 'tent field' to decide which size I wanted as it can be difficult to gauge scale using just dimensions and images/videos.

+1 for the vango omega 350. My wife and i spent 4 weeks touring scandanavia on one bike with this tent. It's plenty big enough for two people with a nice large porch that swallowed two panniers and 2 large compression sacks with all our gear in it. Also very sturdy in high winds and waterproof. you can't quite stand up in it though.

[RizzoTheRat]

I use a Khyam Biker, the legs have an extra hinge over the standard Khyam range so it folds up shorter, meaning it fits nicely in a dry bag on my pillion seat. The front porch area is excellent as it's enough space to get all my kit inside in the dry, though I'd reccomend getting the seperately sold groundsheet so you've got some flooring ni the porch.

Very quick to pitch which is great in crap weather, but on the downside it can be a pain to dry when you get home compared to a conventional tent.

[welshjohn]

Bit of an update guys we have now purchased a vango spirit 200

Spirit200
Can't wait to get it on the bike and go away for a couple of days well as soon as this bloody rain stops .


We gave up on the standing room and the budget.Missis can get her bike kit on ok inside it so then we also decide to pay a bit more for something which should last a couple of years...The sales guys were very good as well in that they set it up to make sure everything was there and ok.

Edited by welshjohn on Monday 16th July 19:41