Expert tourers needed to vote on an Ultimate Solo Long-term Touring Tent

I shouldn't respond to your quiz since i haven't done a long enough tour, let alone used any of those tents for so long.

However i have given my macpac a good workout over the years. (though its not one of the models yo'uve mentioned and its probably older than both of them.) This year the zips finally went, while everything else is still going strong. But even then, its probably only had say six solid months of use, (that is daily use, not sitting on the back of a bike a rack while i snooze in a hotel bed).

But the point i wanted to make was, how good could this survey really be if you don't gather information about the actual usage of the tents on the list. The survey asks the respondents to only tick a box. I could have done that and my data would be worthless.

And without all that information about the respondents you can't know if the result you get is only related to the tents most commonly used. Its possible that one of the best tents is a tent not much used by your responders.

Anyway, just saying....

definitely a marketing post if ive ever seen one

No its not because the poster is a regular on this branch of the forum.

Glad to see the cynics are still here!

@NewIslander: Thanks for your comments. I agree with a lot of what you've pointed out here.

To clarify how I put this poll together, I first made a shortlist of the tents I hear glowing reports about all the time from fellow world cyclists. Having met or corresponded with hundreds of such people over the years, and having run a dedicated adventure cycling site since 2006, I already know that there's a really obvious preference towards the Hilleberg Akto/Nallo 2, MSR Hubba Hubba and Terra Nova Voyager. The next thing I did was to spend hours searching this forum, the cyclechat one, bikeforums, CGOAB, Thorn Cycles, and the bicycletouring subreddit. That few up a few more commonly recommended tents, some from the same manufacturers, some from others (I notice that low-budget tourers from the USA particularly seem to favour the REI dome tents).

Regarding the credibility of the respondents -- I've tried to word the survey to discourage people without sufficient experience from answering the poll. I know that's not exactly scientific! But an important point I haven't mentioned is that I've personally emailed a list of a couple of hundred long-term tourers I know whose experience is not in doubt, and their votes will get extra weight.

The point of this survey is to write an article simplifying the tent debate as much as possible, debunking the idea that a 'perfect' tent exists, showing the best compromises that are tried and tested, so people can stop wasting time fretting over equipment and go out on bloody bike tours. Call me idealistic...

Cheers!

DJ your last paragraph actually makes the question more sensible. However i still don't think the survey question will get you an accurate response for the reasons i think i've already given.

I don't think i was suggesting that dubious tourers would respond. I just think that the results will be more accurate if you had more information about the respondents experience - even if they are all long term tourers.

eg what tents have you used? The respondents should tell you all the tents they have adequate experience with and on therefore on which they have based their choice on. This will show you if none of the respondents or few of them, used this or that tent. Then you will not necessarily be able to stay that that tent is worse than the one they've chosen - simply because they don't have any experience with it. Its about eliminating the unfair bias against a particular tent or tents, that may exist.

eg if you were to ask which is the best fruit and none of your respondents had ever eaten a mango, then how could any of them say that mango was better or worse than an apple. And you might exclude mango from your results as being not a good fruit. But meanwhile in another part of the world, the mango is known as the king of fruits.

So... what was the outcome of this survey?

The basic outcome was that the MSR Hubba Hubba is the most recommended tent for solo cycle touring. I'm writing up the more nuanced outcome into a blog article. Will post here when done.

Happy New Year!

Ha! Ironically, MSR are phasing out the Hubba series.

I've heard a lot of people speak highly of them.

Happy New Year!