New Tent!

My nomadic partner in crime, the Original Shaky (a.k.a. one M. Roy of 3RR fame) and I had a dramatic stroke of good fortune very early on in our trip planning.  Shaky has been using a Nemo Losi 2P tent for the past year on the road, and although that is indeed an awesome tent, it was a little bit unwieldy for bicycle touring purposes.  One night, we sat down together (virtually, over Skype of course), and hatched a plan.  

I came up with the idea to email Bob Molen at Big Sky International, a mom and pop tent manufacturer based out of Jackson, Wyoming.  They make these ultralight and incredibly well-designed tents using crazy alien technology or something.  Of course, the price of one of Big Sky's tents is more than the cost of a month of bicycling, so being the financial pariah-vagabonds that we are, we sent Bob a desperate but hopeful message, begging him to sponsor our trip - and he agreed!  

I won't go into the nitty gritty of our sponsorship deal, because I just got the tents today (I will be transporting Shaky's tent to him from here in 'murica), and set mine up in my parents' back yard, so I want to show it off. 

We settled on the Revolution 2P model tent, which is plenty big enough for 1 smelly dude and all his bike gear, or 1 smelly dude and a "visitor" (we're very hopeful, but also doubtful that this will ever happen).  The tent is made of this translucent, slippery material that feels like water flowing over your fingertips when you touch it.  It also has dual vestibules, gear pockets, everything you'd expect from a good quality tent, but there are two design elements that really attracted me above everything else.  

1. It weighs just about 3 pounds and packs down much smaller than most other tents of the same size.  
2. The mesh inner tent hangs from the tent fly, and the whole structure is supported from the outside by the poles, which just clip onto the outside of the fly.  

These qualities mean that I'll be able to pack my tent into a pannier rather than having to strap it to the rear rack, and that it will set up in about 1 minute, since the tent and fly stay permanently attached, and setting the tent up entails nothing more than clipping the poles onto the outside of the fly.  I think I'll appreciate that after a year or more of setting up and taking down the tent day-in and day-out.

Thanks to Bob for hooking us up, and making this adventure that much more awesome!