The London Biker

Buying a new tent can be incredibly difficult. There are so many choices out there that it can be very confusing if you don’t know what to look for.  As the northern hemisphere heads into spring, and camping becomes a comfortable alternative to the B&B again I wanted to share some tips on how to chose a good tent.

If you enjoy this review, I have some others you may like

I made a little video about choosing a tent which you can watch at the bottom of this post, or over on YouTube.

1. How far from help are you?

Before you decide how much you want to spend, work out why you’re buying the tent and how far away from shelter you are. If for example you’re travelling in a Land Rover, then your tent – whilst being your primary shelter – is not as important as it is if you’re camping 10 miles from anything else on your own. Ask yourself, how near shelter am I if the tent fails? The further from help, the more you want to spend, and the more consideration needs to be taken.

2 . Materials

Simple enough, do some research on what materials work best in which senario. Are you going to be spending time in the desert? What about rain? A good tent for northern Europe, may not be the best bet for the hot climbs of central Afrrica. A swag bag works wonderfully in the dry conditions of Australia, but is simply not suited to a wet trip in Canada.

3. Size, weight and dimensions

Are you carrying the tent on your back, on the back of a motorcycle or in a car? If you’re carrying a tent you’ll need to explore high-tech options with suppliers like Exped and Tatonka. Both companies offer options with light-weight short poles and highly compressible materials – ideal for hiking and the motorbike.

If you’re in the car you have a greater range of options – consider a tent that goes up in seconds from Quecha or something designed to fold out from your vehicle in a few simple steps from people like Oz Tent.

4. Accessories

You’ll be amazed how many tents don’t come with the essentials. Make sure you have:

• Ground sheet / footprint
• Good quality pegs
• Strong poles / pole repair kit
• Material repair kit (for fixing holes)

The ground sheet will really help with keeping condensation to a minimum – they also act as a barrier between the cold ground and your butt, but most importantly they protect the material of your tents bottom from sharp stones on rough ground. A good ground sheet means you can keep your ventilation vents open in most weathers.

Pegs are so important – many tents ship with really weak simple pegs that will not drive into hard ground and have no grip in soft ground. Try a v shaped titanium peg from people like Alpine Kit – they don’t have to be expensive! Make sure you drive the peg in at a 45 degree angle.

5. Design

There are really three major tent designs. Geodysic, dome and tunnel. Depending on what type of camping your doing you’ll need to consider the different types.

Tunnel tents generally pack up very small, they also tend to have very short poles and are quite often very easy to erect. They do however require some thought when pitching – they can be badly affected by wind and you should try to pitch with the front or back facing into the wind – if you get caught side on in a gale it can not only end in a very noisy night- but can also bend the shape of the tent inwards, affecting it’s thermal capabilities and how much rain it can deal with. This is the type of tent that it is really important to buy the best of – money really does have an impact here and the more you spend generally gives you a very sturdy, tough option with all of the benefits.

Dome tents tend to be the cheapest option. You’ll see them in the supermarket for very little cash and for many applications are the ideal option. Their pack size is small, they generally only have two poles and can be purchased as an inside up first option or a fly up first option. In wetter climates the outer (fly) up first option is ideal, but in dryer hoter climbs you’ll find the option of being able to pitch the inner tent without the outer ideal – it keeps the bugs off, and lets the heat escape more efficiently.

Geodesic tents can be rather complicated to erect – but once you’ve worked out the knack they are without doubt the most stable shelters around. They tend to be more expensive and they’re what you’ll see the professional expeditions using as they head out into the great wilderness. They deal with very bad weather well, will see a gale through with hardly a twitter, these are the best options to ensure you’re safe and snug inside.

Finally I’ll  come back to that first tip when choosing your tent – remember that it’s your primary shelter – if you can sleep somewhere else if it flys away or gets soaked through then don’t stress it – if you HAVE to get a good, warm, dry nights sleep then spend some money.

The best place to start is with a reputable supplier – I recommend Travel Dri-Plus – call and ask for Les – he’s the most knowledgeable person I have ever talked to about tents – if he doesn’t know it – it’s not worth knowing about.

If you enjoy this review, I have some others you may like

Thing is, I can’t help spending money in camping shops. It’s a problem, and it leads me to buy things I think I really need.

In this case I’m certain I need this. It’s a bivi bag, or you could call it a waterproof sleeping bag cover. Whatever your syntax of choice – it’s lovely and warm, and importantly waterproof. No good for full on storms, or even a light shower – but combined with the Basha – it may well mean I get the swag off the bike less than I initially planned.

As I couldn’t go camping with Mrs Cashmore this weekend – I decided to take advantage of the hideous weather to give the swag a good wet test.

First of all I wanted to play around with configurations to keep as much of the water off the bag as possible – that resulted in this set up:

A simple rip-stop nylon basha combined with a ground sheet and a couple of poles. A simple solution that for about six hours in moderate winds kept 99% of the rain off the canvas.

However, I then left the swag, and having not tied the ropes down properly, the basha came lose and exposed the swag to the full fury of a coastal South Wales storm. Got up this morning to a small water problem. I’ve called this the second ‘test’, when in fact it was my stupidity forcing one.

The canvas inside was dry, as was my sleeping bag and mat. I got in and gave the canvas a good prodding. Nothing got through. Must admit I was surprised and very impressed.

I then rolled the swag up, and left it in the back of the car for about six hours for the journey home. Just unrolled it and the water has started to seep inside. Not a great result, but proof if I needed it that I have to ensure that the bag just doesn’t get this wet – either by avoiding camping in the worst weather on the road – or by ensuring I get the basha set up properly and securely.

On a more successful note…. the poncho works!

A little while ago we met a very nice chap called Michael Field at the Daily Telegraph Adventure Travel Show – we had a good talk to him and he told us the best way to keep ourselves dry on the road.

After we got back Michael dropped us a line and very kindly offered to send us some bits and pieces to help us get our kit ready. I must be honest I’ve never really believed in after-market waterproofing – we’ve all been there and bought the sprays and the liquids and everything in-between from the camping shop – so when I put the jacket in the wash this weekend I wasn’t holding out much hope.

My jacket is three years old, it’s never been washed and to be totally frank it was not really very waterproof around the tummy area. I’ve always put that down to the way my tummy pushes against the front and desperately tries to escape

So into the washing machine the jacket went, following the instructions on the tech wash bottle – 30 degree hand wash cycle – out it came dripping wet and not very much cleaner than before – but Michael had warned me – use the tech wash first otherwise the waterproof wont work.

Given the beautiful weather this weekend it was dry in a couple of hours, so went back in on a 40 degree wash, gentle cycle, slow spin with the waterproof liquid. To cut a long story short, it took six hours in total to wash the jacket, dry it, wash it again and leave it dry once more. It’s not a task I’d do in anything but the best of weather.

Allowing for British weather I didn’t have to wait long to test the application. This morning it was throwing it down, a perfect opportunity to see in action the wonder proofing that Michael had promised. I rode for an hour in the rain, constant but not heavy, fully expecting to have to change my top when I got into work.

Arriving in west London I noticed something very odd, the water, as it was hitting my jacket was beading, gathering in little balls before running off all together. It’s not 100% efficient but most of the water simply wasn’t staying on the fabric. Getting into the office I pulled the jacket off to discover no wet spot – nothing at all – bone dry underneath.

These two products form the basis of the Nikwax range, and frankly if everything else they produce works as well as these two, then it’s a name I’ll trust in the future.

From a post I made over at Horizons Unlimited - these are my intial thoughts after using the Asus as a primary machine for a week whilst being away – full review to follow in a month once I’ve used it properly.

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Okay so a quick update before the full review gets going – I’m using the ‘wee beastie’ as my primary machine whilst I’m away with work at the moment – so it’s getting heavily used each day.I’ve been scared about messing with the OS too much as I’m away from another machine that will help me fix it – but I have updated all the software and run the advanced mode – had a little explore of Xandros as a distro and played with it’s more esoteric features.

OS - Xandros is a bitch if you’re used to more power and flexibility in your OS, it’s perfect for the Eee, but it’s going as soon as I get a chance to flash to Ubuntu – YMMV depending on your computer know-how and it’s not something I’d recommend for the feint of heart. The boot time on Ubuntu if done properly is only 5 seconds longer than Xandros – worth the wait IMHO.

Build quality - fantastic, very sturdy little machine, been thrown in and out of my bag all week with no visible abuse – comes with a handy little neoprene bag to keep it’s beautiful baby blue cover nice and pristine – no use on the motorbike yet.

Keyboard - takes some getting used to, and even after a week (I’m a touch typist) there’s no illusion that I’ll be putting out 20 page documents – but I can type at about 80% of my usual speed and for blog posts, forums and email that’s sufficient.

Wi-Fi - works like a charm – in easy mode and advanced mode alike it finds and connects exactly like a windows machine, but perhaps not as simply as a Mac – easy to see what’s going wrong if it can’t connect and direct comparison between an IBM thinkpad and MacBook Pro show it sees the same number of connections, it is a little over-optimistic about signal strength though.

Web cam - what do you expect? It’s not as wonderfully clear as an iSight on the Mac, but then again it’s perfectly useable in everything except very strong back light – perfectly sufficient for Skype (once you’ve installed the Skype update).

Storage - I have the 4gb version and was left with a little over a gig after the OS instal – that’s a little tight but after using if for a week I’ve not had any problems – docs are quite small when saved in Open Office format (it ships with open office, but you can save the docs as MS Office should you wish), the video I download I’m dumping to my cameras 2gb SD card and I’m leaving my photos on the camera SD card, uploading directly to flickr. 

The built in SD card reader is well placed, it takes a while to soften up a little – I was slightly worried about how stiff if was when first using it – but no damage to the cameras SD card as it’s been in and out all week. If you’re going to run Windows I’d suggest you install it to a sep SD card or a USB memory stick.

I’m going to be buying an 8gb SD card from Amazon – £14.53 - to leave in there to store videos / photos etc if I really need them – but frankly I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.

Sound - the in-built speakers it ships with are not going to power your house party, but they’re perfectly useable if it’s quiet and you’re on your own – you’ll probably want to plug in some headphones though, and the volume from those if perfectly sufficient.

These are my initial thoughts and I’m sure they’ll shift as I play a little more – I’ll post here as I discover new stuff that may help others – my next step is too see if I can mess around with short AVIs I’ve shot on the stills camera to do video podcasting whilst on the road…..

There’s nothing better at the end of a hard day than a long cold beer, except perhaps a beautifully rich, deep bodied, glass of Bordeaux. Neither is that practical on a bike. The beer? Well it tends to be warm, and the wine? Frankly it doesn’t get out of France before I’ve finished off my three week supply.

So to my absolute delight I discovered that you can freeze-dry wine – no seriously – you can buy 200ml of wonderfully rich ‘rouge’ wine direct from Touratech, and in a tiny little silver packet. Perfect.

I was open minded about the wine, I’m not a snob and tend to drink bottles that are less than £5 a pop, but for £3.04 plus p&p even I was a little worried about the quality of the plonk delivered in a mere three weeks.

I prepared the equipment (a jug with 200ml of water, a long stirring thing, and a glass), opened the sachet and dropped in the rather lumpy, congealed powder – not confident at all it was going to dissolve. But to my surprise, the wine dissipated after only gentle encouragement. Five minutes dragged by and I was rewarded with a deep red jug of wine, ready for drinking at the fireside. What could be more perfect?

The only thing remaining was to actually taste it. This is where the dream of wine on-the-go falls to pieces. Dear Lord… holy cow… and some other non-printable expletives. I’m struggling to describe it without having to resort to blawah, but I can’t come close. It tasted of chemicals, with a hint of toilet cleaner, and and after taste not dissimilar to Sunny Delight.

This is a great idea, and I’m sure if somebody spends some time thinking how it actually tastes rather than trading on the idea of wonderful modern ease and travel, then it may succeed. Until then, drop into your local supermarket, buy the cheapest box of red - remove the outer packing – and be in rouge bliss.

They’ve let me out of the garage – goodness knows why – but Patrick, Stace and I headed down to the London Business Centre over the weekend and met up with some great people who are there to make planning your trip nice and easy – but in the main we just liked to play with the kit and mess around with the camera!

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Some people may say this is a luxury – but frankly there is nothing worse than waking up in a cold tent on a cold morning to be greeted by instant coffee or stale tea. The easy way to solve this problem? A camping espresso machine of course! Perfect for that first thing wake-me-up.

Continuing the series of video reviews, in this episode we look at the Trangia 25-5 – that’s the 2-4 person system that’s non-stick.

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(embedded movie from blip.tv)

The Trangia is a wonderful all round system. I use the 25 (the slightly larger version) because I find the 27 too small for a decent cup of tea for more than one person, and whilst there is an obvious space saving issue, I also find the 27 too fiddly to use with the multi-fuel burner. Talking of which I’d consider the multi-fuel system an absolute must – the meths burner which comes with the system is fine if you have an hour to make a cup of tea – but as we discovered on the Dartmoor training run last year – the last thing you need when you’re cold and tired is to be wondering if your food will ever actually be ready.

The 25 can be had for around £50, the multi-fuel burner is about £80 and then you’re looking at between £5 and £10 for the various accessories, like the multi-disk and extra fuel bottle.

These gloves have now served two winters with distinction. Not only have they kept my mitts warm and dry they’ve also managed to withstand the stupid amount of salt on the roads last year.

The gloves are just £34.99 from any Hein Gericke shop – or their website – which makes them cheap enough to replace each year if needed, but you’ll probably get a lot more than one years use out of them.

They’re too warm to wear in the sping or summer, but perfect for those chilly winter mornings when even your heated hand grips dont cut it.  If you combine these gloves with a good heated hand grip system you will never have cold hands no matter how chilly it is or how long you ride.

The lining is made from a breathable membrane so you don’t sweat in them, they’re also totally waterproof – from the webstie;

• Winter season/rain
• 100% water and windproof
• Breathable Sheltex® membrane
• Warmth-giving 3M Thinsulate® insulation
• Reflecting 3M Scotchlite® material

Material:

• Back of the hand: tear resistant textile

Colour: black
Safety Extras:

• Back of the hand has stretch leather and foam padding
• Double material on the edge of the hand
• Scotchlite® reflective material

From a saftey point of view I wouldn’t want to have a high speed crash in them – whilst I think they’d deal with a certain amount of tarmac – I wouldn’t want to test them – they’ve very durable and don’t look like they’ll easily come apart – but there’s no amour, and they are after all made from man-made materials rather than leather.

I can’t reccomend these gloves enough – I’m now putting these back in the kit box as it’s started to get warmer and I’ve moved on to my new Urban gloves.