The Concept
This tent is being shown as a tent that one person can sleep in for three seasons
and fit a fully loaded pannier set motorcycle in.
Berth
This is normally to let you know how much space you get in a tent and
to be honest it’s not right anyway. If you order a two person tent then
you get enough room for two people to sleep, not two people and their
gear... where they think their gear goes I have no idea but tents have
always been done this way. Therefore, I’ve always bought tents with at
least two person berth and more often I will go for three person.
The Solo Expedition is obviously for one person as the name would
suggest but the amount of room you get is phenomenal. You have the
sleeping section that you can fit an airbed in and then some plus you
have the ‘garage’ section and then a porch section after that.
The whole tent is 3.7 metres long and 2.6 metres wide at the widest
point added to that you have the height of 1.95 metres, that’s almost
6’4”! You are getting a hell of a lot of space for a solo tent in this one
and to be honest you could fit quite a few people in the Solo if you
don’t use the tent for your bike and there is an added groundsheet that
you can get for the garage area.
I loved the fact that I could stand up and it does beg the question of
course that if the tent is higher then it must be more susceptible to
high winds. This is true and there is no getting away from it, if you have
a tent that is 60cm high then you’re going to have a more rigid
structure against high winds. The Solo has been built knowing that it
has to take that extra stability from somewhere. It comes from the
ground up with the numerous and very robust pegging sections and
guy ropes. It’s not free standing, meaning that without pegs it will fall
down as you only have two poles to put the whole tent up. You’re not
going to stick this kind of tent on the north face of the Eiger that’s for
sure but then it was never designed for that! It will stand up to a crappy
night of high wind. The tent is made to flex and bend with the wind.
Speaking with the company, as I did not have a storm to play with I’m
advised that the tents are designed to flex in high wind as stated and
they have in fact got two expeditions to Everest base camp with the
gear! Now that’s a serious testing ground.
Here is a clip of one of the tents being blasted in a Colorado mountain
storm front.