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| Enjoy the freedom of getting away from it all when camping |
Force Ten Helium is not a Charles Bronson film – it is a lightweight, all-weather tent from Vango.
It knocks out at between £160-240, weighs in at 1.2kg and packs down to about so big.
This tent is light and compact – definite pluses for cyclo touring.
As always, I never read the instructions. This provides added excitement to the already breathtaking adrenalin rushes one experiences when putting up your brand new tent for the first time. Better still: for that ultimate thrill - do it at night.
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| Putting up the Force Ten Helium 1 at night |
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| Tenting seminar |
The fabrics and zips – after using a rugged relative of the Helium, the Banshee – seem delicate. I pitched the new tent on soft grass using the bike bag as an extra layer – which was fine. But on one of those pitches towards the Med where the grass gives way to gravel mixed up with knobbly sharp bits that have dropped of the ubiquitous pine tree, I would worry about a bit about rippage. I was careful with the zips on the inner and outer as they often rode over the fabric – nothing to do with me being hamfisted or not reading the instructions!
Setting up the fly is straightforward though there seemed to be nowhere snug on the fly for the two end-poles to go. The few guys are nifty – they are insubstantial as I presumed the aerodynamics of the rounded tent would perform well in strong winds. The two end-poles need to be pulled tight or the outer will get quite intimate with the inner during any rain.
The snag with the tent are the inner’s attachments to the outer. The banshee had cigar-shaped, very miniature duffle coat style ‘toggles’ that were easy to attach and detach from loops in the fly, but the Helium has an awkward set of connectors and hangers. The idea is that you just erect the whole caboose with the inner already attached so as not to have to fiddle about with these bits’n’bobs. But, in wet conditions, this is not bright, as the otherwise dry inner gets wet too. I like to stash the inner and outer separately in small front panniers – to save time on all that faffing about with folding it up like a Downton Abbey napkin. There is knack to attaching the inner, which I am sure I’ll pick up.
Once up the tent is cosy and long. The use of space indoors needs some planning as the porch and up-the-side spaces are limited.
It was a bit unclear which end was which given the position of the door. There was just enough room for me to kneel, albeit with my head bent forward and so I was able to perform the crucial wet weather pack up of sleeping bag, mat etc.
The rain was torrential on our second night. My compadre’s daft dome tent turned into a Center Parc with its own water sports facility. The Helium ignored the wasser – not a drop inside. However, I had the bike bag beneath the tent and so I was not able to test the upward seepage from a saturated pitch.
The wind picked up a few times and the tent felt sturdy but it was hardly a howling gale up on the top of a mountain.
Returning the tent, poles and pegs into the bag is a pain and so the metal stuff ended up in a pannier - fitting OK into my Alturas.
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| My bigger tent's cooking area |
Overall it is a good tent but if you are cycling with a lot of gear it will be tough to keep it all under cover. In that respect it may be more of a hiker's tent.
It is suited for travelling light – and shorter breaks when you are able to make do with a simple wardrobe rather than different evening dress for several nights. It certianly seems fit for purpose, though it is not what I would call a lounge tent – no space for an impromptu bar/dancing area, or even for just spreading out as a cool breeze breezes around inside while the crickets cricket and the warblers warble outside.
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