Lightweight tent recommendations?

Mine is the grey 20d indeed. I think the only difference is the outher fabric between the 15d and 20d, everything else seems exactly the same to me.

The only thing i would want to change on my star river 2 is adding an extra big pocket on the inside like the copper spur has.

The tent poles fit in my framebag, which make it a lot easier to fit the tent in my other bags.

I'm currently undecided between the following:

Vango Cairngorm 300

Naturehike Cloud Up 3

Decathlon Trek 900 Ultralight 2 Person

Want something light that's good for bike packing but still spacious (prob the Vango or Naurehike then) but they are both such different tents in their construction...

Can't comment practically on any of those but the Lanshan is also another option (from ebay or Ali). It has been discussed up thread a lot as a budget bikepacking tent.

I think single pole tents (ish) always seem more spacious if the pole goes length ways like the cloud up rather than cross ways like the other two

We have a cloud up 3, very spacious, bit of a different kettle of fish to those other two. For the money (140 I think) it's a good deal at the sacrifice of a bit of weight. Think it's 2kg without the footprint. Builds up very easily, I would say the poles feel the cheapest part of it, haven't had it out in a gale to see how they fare though

Thanks for the advice! I am veering towards the Cloud Up tbh as it seems so roomy.

Would consider the Lanshen but I know I’ll mess something up like getting the wrong pole or something

I have a cloud up 2, id say its a generous 1 man and a tight 2 man, I broke the pole crown when I shared it with another person (but we are both almost 2m tall). Apart from that its been great, I see the new version has addressed the issue of flapping side pannels by adding lines there too, which is almost enough of a reason for me to upgrade. Looks like they have upgraded the crown too

I picked up the naturehike star river 2 in a fetching navy 15D fabric.

Fly, inner and poles come in at 1.6kg on my scales, under 1.8kg all in.
So great for the bike and doable hiking.

The cloud up 2 looks good but I prefered the twin side entry and 1.35m wide inner of the star river.

May have been discussed but what the thought on the Vango F10 Hydrogen?

Certainly pricey. Perhaps a bit untested? or fragile? Better options for less?

Has anyone tried replacing the elastic in a tent pole. Seen this which makes it look easy but also keen not to fark things up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNx0vHCr­NXU

crap idea when you could get a proven great design like a tarptent li for less

Yeah looks good, the whole one pole thing I like. Think the Li range is durable enough for multi month touring?

Its yet another thing to try n wrap my head around, with so many options and specs and lingo to learn. Love hate sorta thing.

Like anything being used for months expect wear and tear. Tyvek footprint helps avoiding abrasive wear. Plenty of tents are used on the American thruhikes.

Like platypus I wouldn't drop £600 on a gimmicky tent when there are plenty of great tents about.

Yes - I did it with this kit and it was very easy.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174204998625

Thanks

I have the 1 man Vango F10 Helium, which is the same shape but significantly cheaper and with less 'tech' and really rate it. Super lightweight, packs small and has held up to moderate abuse well.

durability is fine, have done 100 nights or so in a zpacks cuben tent with no issues

realistically naturehike, six moons, and tarptent provide a tent for anyone at any budget these days

Does anyone outside the US do this stuff well?

if by well you mean top-end, then it would be cuben fiber (DCF) tents as that's the highest performance fabric available these days
locus gear in japan are wizards with it, otherwise it's US companies; tarptent, HMG, SMD, and a couple of others
there is trekkertent in the UK but they never have a solid run of good reviews

It's been ~5 years since I've I've looked but Tramplite and Trekkertent seemed promising back then for ultralight UK-made shelters.

We were pretty pleased with our trekkertent drift, once it actually arrived. The lead times weren't/aren't accurate at all, and the communication was fairly sporadic and crap though.

Yeah, I mean, I have a Borah cuben bivvy and that came from the US too (via Australia for some reason, the carbon footprint egads!). I was going to buy another one from them but he slowed down production and stuff happened and so I just got a RAB instead. Not as light or compact but does the job. I just hate having to buy stuff from the US, thinking of the shipping, dealing with customs bullshit, warranty concerns, etc.

So, if I could find the stuff locally I'd pay a bit more for that.

I hate this kind of thing but it seems to impact all smaller producers. Answering emails likely wasn't what they had in mind when they started sewing tents together, welding bike frames, stitching bags, etc.

I still haven't committed to a 2P tent for our future adventures but the one that sticks in my mind is the bikepacking one from um Big Agnes (Copper Spur maybe?). I'll be revisiting this when we start thinking about that GNT ride again.

Well no, it likely wasn't. But then they should just say leadtimes are 12 weeks (or what ever it ended up being, but that seems to ring a bell) rather than saying 3-4 weeks.

That said, there's a DCF Phreeranger on ebay for £700.