After thorough research I have finally bought a new tent. My Big Summer Trip involves a particularly long, steep bit and I have made it a mission to cut down my load's weight. In addition, my Banshee 300, in spite of its huge master bedroom, garage, conservatory and general all-round, well-aired roominess, was a bit fiddly and irking to put up. My cyclo buddy would have had his up, had a shower, cooked a four-course meal,read a good book, and polished his spokes by the time I got my guy-lines tightened. So I have been after a substitute.
I started at the bottom: the single skin, dome tents with, as it turns out, their unerring ability to leak. So I moved on up to backpacker tents and came across the two general, double-skin types: the tunnel tent and the sidedoor. Under £75, these all looked great except for the weight. My banshee, although a mansion, came in at 2.7kg and I was after halving that. I extended my budget to include what could be the tents that would get a podium position - the Terre Nova/Wild Country Zephyros 1 and Zephyros lite 1, Vango Blade 100, Vango Zenith 100, Vaude Terralight.
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| blade |
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| helix |
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| zenith |
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| terralight |
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| zephyros lite |
The tents all began to look the same and had virtually the same dimensions. the pack size was a selling point too as short and fat was better than long and thin as the whole cabouche would be best stuffed into my panniers.
All the above had their pluses and minuses but were still too heavy, or too long, or too short, or simply not very nice. So in comes the wild card: the Force Ten Helium 100 - a Vango offshoot.
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| Force Ten Helium |
1.2kg, and stubby enough for a pannier. There is a rather complicated tension 'system' going on inside the inner tent that stabilises the tent should the wind pick up. I intend to decommission this gizmo and so long as I go on a tour when there is no wind forecast, I should be fine, right? I will get back to y'all with a low down on how it 'performed'.
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