On our 2016 trip from Sacramento, CA to Prudhoe Bay/Deadhorse Alaska and other far north environs, we carried our tents on the motorcycles and stayed in them about 1/2 the time. Motels and at a friend’s home the other 1/2 of the time. I actually took two tents: an REI two-person dome tent and a Redverz Solo Garage-style tent for when it was raining. I had the room on the bike to carry them and wanted to test the contrast of the two tents. While I liked the REI dome because of its fast setup and take-down needing no stakes, I found that the big garage tent made getting ready and storing gear much easier and was a nice way to escape the rain and huge mosquitos while on the frozen tundra. I could stand-up in it, work on the bike in it (If I had to) and six of us even had a party in there on a rainy “night” (24 hours of daylight) north of the Arctic Circle.
But the size of it!!! Packed, it measures 12x12x24 and weighs 13.4 lbs which includes the optional “Garage” floor. So I sold it and replaced it with a “Lone Rider Mototent.” It weighs 12 lbs with poles and stakes and is has almost exactly the same room inside the garage area and quite a bit more in the sleeping area. The Lone Rider is equally as tall but it packs in the supplied bag to a cylinder 8″ in diameter and 24″ long including poles and stakes. To be fair, it doesn’t have the optional floor in there. Yes, it also needs stakes and would be a problem any place I couldn’t drive one of those in; however, we didn’t stay in any place like that last time and I don’t suspect we will this time. So right now my plans are to leave the small dome tent home and just go with the Lone Rider this time. It has a little more room in the sleeping area than the Redverz Solo did and maybe a tad less in the garage area.
I found that it packed into a bag just a little larger than my 2 or 3 man REI comes in. See the photos.
