Touring Equipment

That was my first use of an @. Chuffed

If I'm going to do it ultralight again, I'm gonna go back to that, but with a smaller lighter tent that doesn't required tent pole, which will reduced the pack size in the saddlebag enough to get away with a smaller framebag.

I am looking for a touring tent, @edscoble what tent are you using?

Nemo Equipment do pole less tents (although their website appears to be down)

MSR Hubba HP, expensive tent, but pack down to a really small size once you removed the pole and attach it to the top tube of the bicycle;

Sleeping bag on left (grey), bottom is inflatable mattress, right is tent and top is pole, bottle to illustrate size.

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What sleeping bag is that Ed ?

Snugpak Travelpak at a guess...

Funnily enough that is the tent that is coming up the most on my research. MSR Hubba 1, the single person one right?

It did look good when @JB was using it in the Lakes, room to sit up in - something a lot of the lightweight tents don't necessarily have.

@edscoble can you use the Hubba as a tarp-tent/pitch it without the inner?

@Cupcakes > Snugpak Travelpak at a guess..

Nope, my dad lend me his sleeping bag which is the Mountain Equipment Xero 250, tiny bit bigger than my Snugpak but with down.

can you use the Hubba as a tarp-tent/pitch it without the inner?

Think you can, let me give it a crack in the sitting room.

Ah, made the assumption from your previous posts.

I've found several photos for the MSR inner pitched, but I'd guess you need that to hold the top cross-pole in place... Lots of sites talking about the Hubba vs Tarp Tents so I guess maybe your options are inner or full pitch... Hopefully you can prove my guess work wrong again!

Edit: After more searching I've just found a picture of the Hubba NX pitched 'fly only' on the MSR site itself... oops!!

Okay, it's doable, just trickier without the inner holding the pole up.

Edit: After more searching I've just found a picture of the Hubba NX pitched 'fly only' on the MSR site itself... oops!!

Bastard, that's five minutes of my free time I won't get back.

#firstworldproblem.

To be fair, that picture have a groundsheet, which you need to buy seperately in order to prop the tent like a tarp.

Thanks @edscoble!

Contemplating getting a tent for next year and the Hubba is checking a lot of the boxes. Noticed the ground sheet too, good to know it's manageable without though!

Don't forget there's a Lightweight tent recommendation topic already, that's where I got mine from.

@edscoble - What mattress is that?

For the #TLDR crowd, the Terra Nova Laser 1 tent is the competitor to the MSR.

Edit - and the Hilleberg Akto as well I guess.

What mattress is that?

All in here.

Yep, already read through that and several other bikepacking blogs/forums etc. May write up findings/comparison at some point, but it's something on the list for next year and the odd eBay search at the moment (missed out on a Laser for ~120 the other day!)

Top priority/investment right now is "upgrading" my level of fitness and putting in more hours on the 29er before the Bearbones 200.

Easy - stop eating bread.

No bread, no beer, less polo would probably help too...!

Brittany ferries do a night ferry to st malo, could say time. If you're prepared to find a corner and sleep on ferry, I slept well.

Know you want to come back from st malo, but look into a night ferry on the way out/back could give you more time away too.

Ah, takes me back to an overnight ferry ride I took between Maine and Nova Scotia in '84. Slept on the upper deck because of imminent meteor shower and wasn't disappointed.

Other option would be taking the ferry to Le Havre, cycle round a bit, then take the St Malo ferry on the way back.

Yeah. have been looking at getting an overnight ferry straight after work the day before. The one to St Malo leaves at 8pm though so zero chance I could get there in time after work. There is another that leaves at 11pm to le havre though, you get a cabin and arrive at 8am. It would mean we get to france a day earlier. Thinking of then riding to Cherbourg and getting a late night ferry back to portsmouth. So it would look something like

Day1: overnight ferry to le havre
day2: 40 miles riding
Day3: 40 miles riding
Day4: 40 miles riding
Day5: 30 miles riding and ending in Cherbough+ 20.45 ferry back to Portsmouth arriving at 22.45. Late night pitch in a local campsite or B&B
Day6: ride back to london

The alternative is we ride to St Malo but the ferry from there takes a long time so we would need to catch it on day5 at 10.30am, writing off that whole day and also forcing us to do 60 mile days each day before that which might annoy Maria.

I vote on the 11pm to Le Havre, it's a nice feeling cycling out of the ferry into the rising sun to start the day.