Congratulations and Best Wishes, Roger. Couldn't happen to a nicer person. Hope your venture is profitable and personally rewarding.

Roger, here is a picture of my mat inflated, it is approx 62cm



The end of the tape looks like it is sticking over but it is accurately measuring the side of the mat (optical illusion because of the curvature of the mat)

Hi Tad and James

OK, I see now. But those are the deluxe versions, and this is Backpacking Light.
Ah well, what's a UL guy to do?
Hum .... how about 1250? With outwards sloping side walls?

Cheers

Hi Stuart

Larger vestibule - understood. We put our packs in the rear vestibule where they are out of the way and act as a bit of a wind break too. They are still accessible there from inside.

In really bad weather we have hauled one pack to the downwind end and packed everything up into our packs inside the tent. Then, fully dressed for the weather, we exit and pull the tent down, and stick it on top of my pack.

> in turbulent wind it is suceptible to strong gusts, as you might guess.
To be expected with only 2 poles. But with double guys that is partly solved.
'Double guys': one to corner elbow and one 1/2 way down, as shown in diagram several pages back.

Cheers

Roger, 1250 cm with the outward sloping walls, (as I stated earlier) should be sufficient.

Yes I understand the "Light" part and I'm happy to use a narrower pad; but everyone seems to only make a "long" in a wide width and I hate having my head and now my feet hanging off the pad so my only option is the LW or deluxe.

It is one of those trade-off that I just have to live with- though just a few years ago I could sleep on a torso pad and my pack, but the bones are getting older and refuse to stay quite unless they get their extra padding.

I don't need the Exped when cowboy camping or when its very warm and can get by with a NeoAir- but I don't need a tent then either, a tarp or bivy works just fine. Thus the 1250cm would be appreciated.

60 inch good for me,my wife and my son during summer.And good for 2 "just" friend during winter...(last call for 60"!)

The MSR mutha hubba is 68" wide. its a heavy 3man

Rog wants to make a light 2 man

Not to b an A$$ but 60" is ridiculous for a LW 2person tent. by like, a foot


touching elbows doesn't mean you wanna "do it" with your tent mate

One thing to remember when discussing dimensions: the longer, wider and higher the tent, the less stable it is in bad weather.

Some of my early models had just two poles, but that left the roof really moving when the wind blew from the side. Not so good.

Cheers

This discussion reminds me of an old article about choosing a canoe.

It offered that design choices affected three outcomes: 1) speed 2) maneuverability 3) stability and suggested the reader look at these in the form of a triangle with one outcome at each corner. Design choices place the canoe somewhere inside the triangle. The closer it is any of the corners the better the outcome belonging to that corner. The farther it is from any corner, the worse the outcome for that corner.

The point of the article was:
1) you cannot maximize more than one of the three outcomes
2) you can do pretty well for two of the outcomes by making some compromises on those two and large compromises on the third
3) If you value all three the best you can do is mediocre on all three

Shelter designers have more than three outcomes but the big four might be 1) storm worthiness 2) weight 3) ventilation 4) volume . So a tetrahedron would replace the triangle in this analogy. You still can't maximize them all.

I believe that Roger ranks their importance in the order I listed them above and he has explained very well his purposes in doing so. The direction he is headed is proper for that ranking. There are already other good choices that meet the needs of other rankings, why should be bother to compete in those niches?

Just remember ... "We can have it all" is a myth.

I also think 60 inches would be huge. 50 is more than enough. 44 is about minimum, but since its usually just me and my wife even 40 is doable.

I know things look different in person, but that picture of your wife in the tent made it look huge.

Congratulations.

Hi Jim

> 1) storm worthiness 2) weight 3) ventilation 4) volume
> I believe that Roger ranks their importance in the order I listed them
You know, that's very good. Yes, you are right about how I rank them.
I might add 5) ease of pitching in bad weather.

Cheers

And I very much agree with the order of the denominations of importance.

This discussion reminds me of an old article about choosing a canoe.

reminds me of several people trying to agree on buying a shampoo or renting a movie...

Edited by butuki on 06/14/2012 21:19:36 MDT.

Roger,

Wondering how the tent making/planning is going?

Just thoughts not requests:

Not that it matters much but it's too bad tents couldn't be a bit like some sleeping bags where you can order various widths and lengths. My current tent is 50" wide. I am guilty of using a beefy 25" 16oz Neoair trekker. It's injury prevention for my tent-mate from knee-hi's as a side sleeper. I don't need 25", more like 22 or 23 would be splendid but I have yet to find one of that width. A reasonable height is hard to come by for me. At my height of 5'8", a tent that can occupy 6'7" is heaps. Not that I dislike extra room but just wonder what the difference would translate to if it was used in width instead. If I where looking for a tent it would be more advantageous to have a short wide one. For what ever reason my hiking companions tend to be my height or less. Of course, it's the real priority's you've outlined before that are most important. Typically, I am the only wide pad sleeper so a width of 1250 works.

Wondering what the potential weight difference would be narrow verses wide, short verses tall? Perhaps it is lighter to go longer than wider?

-christy

Edited by nuggetwn on 10/06/2012 02:39:32 MDT.

Tent planning proceeds.
It takes a surprisingly LONG time to go from concept to available in shops when a major mfr is involved (as opposed to a cottage mfr who makes a few at a time). At this stage I do not expect to it in the shops for a year or more. The steps are roughly thus:
Go through prototypes until satisfactory (we are here)
Get Sales Samples to show gear shops
Get orders from shops
Contract for bulk production
Get delivery, ship to shops

As it is a high performance tent ('cause I say so), we have to train the Asian sewing company how to make it. That takes time. Some techniques commonly used on cheap pop-ups are unsuitable. For instance, bar-tacking little bits of webbing to a light unreinforced silnylon hem just will not do. I will update when I can.

cheers

Thanks for the update, Roger!

Yeah, as Christy mentions, being able to modularize the design for a more custom width and length is probably not doable at this point. the delivery of such an animal would be significantly delayed, though there are several companies that offer it as add on components. None offer it at the production level, unless you count scaling up or down, such as with the Stephensons 2r or 2c models. A nice thought, though.

Minimum 2300mm inside length ((maybe not over the full width, but for the majority of the width)! Someone said most tents are shorter than that, and I agree, most are to short!

My fall/winter bag is 2400 long with the hood flat, maybe 2300 with the hood done up. I am 195 cm / 6'5" tall, and there are plenty of taller people around.
The last thing I want in a single wall tent or any winter tent, is touching the walls with my hood or foot of bag, getting wet from condensation and reducing warmth from compressing the down.

Could you add a length-wise diagram same as you did for cross-section?

Width 1250 mm. At least in the shoulder-knee region. Sure, regular pads are only 20"/ 51cm wide, but most people hang out over the sides somewhere or another. You said there are no lightweight wide pads? In the winter I use a long and wide closed cell foam pad, at 25". And then you need to add the sleeping bag loft to that, easily 100mm on each side. I know you have tried it out, but some of us are bigger than you, or don't like to snuggle quite so close to our tent mates.

+2 on setting up your tent, getting two guys over 6'2/185cm and their three-season bags and start taking pictures, even better, let them sleep in it.

Edited by Tjaard on 10/06/2012 13:43:54 MDT.

Hi Tjaard

The length question is not easy. My understanding from Easton is that a 2200 mm groundsheet (not counting walls) satisfies something like 98% or 99% of the market. That makes catering to the extremes (eg your 6' 5") a bit uncommercial. Remember that the factory is making hundreds of these at a time, and to change the length would require new patterns for a lot of the tent. In a commercial situation, that becomes very expensive. It's a problem and I don't have a solution yet.

Could one get a custom mod to the length of the middle section after the tent has been made? A real kludge to do, and careful seam sealing would be needed, but at least that remains possible. Pretty horrible, I agree.

> The last thing I want in a single wall tent or any winter tent, is touching the
> walls with my hood or foot of bag, getting wet from condensation and reducing
> warmth from compressing the down.
Agreed, but the winter tent is not quite that bad. We put gear down the sides to separate the groundsheet wall from the quilt (or SB), so we don't get condensation down the sides anyhow. That works very well. I haven't noticed any condensation at the head end from the groundsheet wall either. I think that is because it does not form there; rather it forms on the roof, which is quite some distance away. The foot end for most of us has gear across it as well.

> some of us are bigger than you, or don't like to snuggle quite so close to our tent mates.
Yeah, understood, although I have noticed that at -20 C warmth does become a bit more important than anything else!
Sorry, but I think changing the width is not going to be easy. That would require huge changes to the design of the poles and everything.

Cheers

Hello Roger,

To respond to you:

"My understanding from Easton is that a 2200 mm groundsheet satisfies something like 98% or 99% of the market
The issue there is whether we believe a large company like Easton, accurately assesses the needs of serious outdoor users. If they did, why haven't any of them made a tent like yours?

On the other hand, 2200 might be enough for me too, if the walls aren't touching at that length. My experience is that any tent under 2300 mm leads to touching the walls, not a huge deal on a double wall tent, but enormous on a singlewall.

I had the same thought about width, but when I saw your diagram, I saw how the walls are much further out than that. That is why I asked you for a diagram of the lengthwise cross-section, to see how the clearance is over the feet and head. If there is ~2100mm of length at 300 mm above the ground, it will probably be fine for me and others of similar size as me.

... and to change the length would require new patterns for a lot of the tent. In a commercial situation, that becomes very expensive

That was someone else suggesting different sizes. I would never expect a large commercial tent to be offered in lengths or widths, although it would be great!

Edited by Tjaard on 10/06/2012 21:05:16 MDT.

I just want to add my 2 cents to this discussion. I agree with the points that were made about keeping the dimensions similar (if not identical) to your previous tents. If it works for your wife and you, then it will work for my wife and me. I think there are several reasons for this:

1) This will not (at least for me) replace my current two person tent. There are plenty of roomy ultralight two person tents out there. They are great, but they are not tents I would use in really bad weather. Having a very storm worthy tent would compliment my existing two person tent; so much so that the tighter dimensions wouldn't matter.

2) I know lots of guys who share a tent, but they don't share two person tents. In fact, they won't even look at a two person tent. They use three person tents. Obviously, some of that is marketing (and a mistake on their part) but that means that even if you (or Easton) market a tent as 2+ or "roomy two person" it probably won't be used by them. At least, it won't be used by them for summer time hiking.

3) As mentioned by someone else, hard core climbers and hikers are willing to squeeze into a tent.

4) For the same reason that big guys don't share a two person tent, a lot of big guys buy two person tents for solo use. A very storm-worthy, very light two person tent would appeal to a lot of solo winter campers.

5) Steep sides make a huge difference. A lot of the pads out there are very thick, which means that a teepee (or mid) style tent has to have a lot of width just to make for a reasonable amount of space. This tent is the opposite.

In other words, I would definitely buy this tent for my wife and me (on the rare occasions where we want to backpack to some place windy). I would also use it for my own purposes in the winter months.

Hi Tjaard

> If they did, why haven't any of them made a tent like yours?
That's a very good question, but there are several answers.
* The vast majority of Americans buying a tent want it for sheltered sites in the summer months. For that matter, they don't use it very often anyhow.
* A tunnel tent is more expensive to make than a pop-up, and therefore harder to sell.
* The Asian factories in general don't know how to make a tunnel, but they can churn out pop-ups dead easy. (Check your local supermarket.)
* Tunnels are readily available from countries where the weather is reliably unreliable, such as Northern Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Of course, I could add that Easton have seen the light and want to sell one.

Yes, I think you might find the 2200 mm length inside the tent would be enough, even for your 6' 5" (1.96 cm)

This shows the side view of the summer tent diagrammatically. The black lines are the poles and the fly. The dark blue lines are the walls of the groundsheet. The red line is you in your sleeping bag (well, sort of!). As you can see, the walls are a long way away: much more than 300 mm.
Easton's comment was that the tent looked HUGE; I had to point out that the groundsheet area was actually the same as many of their current models.

Cheers

Edited by rcaffin on 10/07/2012 15:18:03 MDT.