Huge Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 Tent Overview

Piling your gear onto the particular form of a motorcycle body presents distinctive points. It’s not simply the burden or dimension of your gear that issues but in addition its form. Huge Agnes is certainly one of few gear manufacturing corporations tackling that downside head-on. They’re designing tents with the rising pattern of motorbike touring in thoughts.

I’ve been burned too many instances by hammock tenting — a scarcity of timber completely spaced or a scarcity of them totally — I gained’t use one except I’m going someplace acquainted. In the meantime, my (admittedly older) backpacking tent is cumbersome and never very conducive to bikes.

Forward of a weeklong bikepacking journey final yr, I picked up the Copper Spur HV UL2 from the Huge Agnes bikepacking collection. It options the model’s patented Shortstiks, a intelligent design that makes use of shorter-than-normal tent pole sections to permit the totally packed tent to suit between handlebars, behind the saddle, or inside a motorcycle’s body. I examined it on a number of bikepacking journeys, backpacking journeys, and even a number of kayak excursions. Right here’s what I discovered.

In brief: The Huge Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 tent ended up being a lightweight and environment friendly touring companion, saving house with out sacrificing a lot consolation. It matches two folks and our gear snugly and matches simply on a motorcycle. It even had a number of surprising advantages, corresponding to being good for backpacking and kayak touring.

For a two-person tent, it may be a decent match relying on how a lot gear you have got. And it’s vulnerable to water whereas rolled up in your bike body. However what it lacks in these areas, this tent makes up for with sheer versatility and performance.

Copper Spur HV UL2 Tent Overview

Gentle however Not Missing

The 2-person Copper Spur is light-weight at simply 2 kilos 11 ounces minimal path weight and three kilos 2 ounces packaged weight. In comparison with different light-weight Huge Agnes tents just like the Fly Creek HV UL2 (1 pound 15 ounces path weight and a pair of kilos 4 ounces packaged weight), the Copper Spur is within the middle-weight class.

However the Copper Spur makes up these additional ounces by maintaining user-friendly options, corresponding to giant vented double doorways. For me, the spectacular weigh-in of the Fly Creek mannequin wouldn’t be value crawling out and in headlong over my companion to pee in the midst of the night time.

The Copper Spur can also be freestanding, so it doesn’t depend on stakes or rocks to maintain a roof over my head. That’s a key function for a number of the terrain I’ve camped on, particularly when arriving late and beat from driving all day. It units up shortly with a single pole, and color-coded webbing on the corners is straightforward to comply with (extra on this under).

A Tight Two

Huge Agnes is considerably famend for its tents’ simple setups. Two predominant poles are pre-connected at a cross level within the center. These effortlessly snap collectively and push into their respective, color-coded ends. The center pole clips into the dome of the roof, and the tent takes form. Viola! Your shelter is prepared.

My go-to tenting methodology within the humid Midwest summers is to maintain the fly off, risking any shock storms, whereas maintaining the rain fly hooked to the poles on one facet. That method, on the first signal of drizzle, I can get out and shortly throw it over.

The Huge Agnes Copper Spur UL2 lends itself effectively to this methodology. It makes use of snaps to carry the fly on as a substitute of the normal eyelets to string the ends of the poles by.

There’s loads of house for shoe and kit storage within the roomy vestibules. That house is clutch, it seems, in the event you plan to make use of this for 2 folks. As a result of when Huge Agnes says “two folks,” it actually means “two people who find themselves emotionally shut sufficient to be proximately on prime of one another.”

The tent matches our sleeping pads side-by-side, barely shoved in opposition to one another, with the outer edges pushing out the tent partitions. However they do match!

Any gear exterior of a jacket and a e book must be saved elsewhere. I had the roominess of the tent to myself on a solo journey and received a bit spoiled, which made the primary journey with my husband a little bit of a shock.

However all in all, it really works tremendous with two folks. You need to simply concentrate on what you’re entering into. If in case you have any spatial anxieties, you may take into account upping to the 3-, 4- and even 5-person Copper Spur for additional wiggle room.

That’s a part of the fantastic thing about the Copper Spur tent line. It’s made in 1-5 individual capability variations, which is a large vary of sizes. It additionally is available in a mtnGLO model that features sturdy, light-weight LED lights constructed into the tent partitions to mild issues up with out a headlamp or flashlight.

Different Drawbacks

In addition to inside house, the one different downside (apart from the $550 worth level) is the way it’s supposed to connect to your bike. The poles slot in their very own bag, which is nice for splitting weight whereas packing. Then that bag attaches to the principle bag by way of the webbing to maintain every little thing collectively.

The method of feeding the straps by the webbing to one another after which the bars is tight and tedious. Pulling out the bag and redoing the straps every day for a number of days would get previous shortly. I used to be glad to bypass that course of by choosing up a bag that match the tent completely (plus extras) and fixing that to my bike as a substitute.

Water safety on the handlebars is one other hindrance too. With out fair-weather fortune in your facet, and with out some sort of waterproof cowl for the Copper Spur, you’ll be sleeping in a sopping tent by dusk. The daisy webbing is a pleasant possibility for bike attachment. However I don’t see myself utilizing it that a lot exterior of a final resort.

An Surprising Profit

I purchased this tent for bikepacking and to improve my backpacking tent. However I didn’t notice how fantastically it could sync with one other of my favourite sports activities — kayaking. We like to do in a single day and multi-night journeys to take pleasure in Missouri’s riverways, one of many biggest geographic options of this state.

My Notion Carolina kayak has seen a lot of the Ozark Nationwide Scenic Riverways. However it’s older and includes a barely outdated slender hatch that makes packing for touring tough.

Most of my journeys have required toploading dry baggage onto the deck strains as a result of so few issues match contained in the storage. However the Copper Spur’s Shortstik Poleset permits the tent to squeeze by that slender opening into the dry storage of my boat. That’s an enormous bonus!

And kayaking in all probability isn’t the one bonus sport this tent will work for. Even on the backpacking facet, shorter poles enable me to rearrange my backpack extra seamlessly, one thing regular backpacking tents don’t at all times provide.

Copper Spur HV UL2 Conclusion

You might must get cozy, however this tent is great at what it does. The light-weight design makes lengthy journeys over tough elevations a breeze realizing {that a} snug, simple house for the night time is driving alongside you.

It has its downsides. It isn’t the roomiest or most spacious tent you possibly can bikepack with. And it could get moist whereas driving in the event you aren’t ready to guard it from rain. However it is extremely mild, matches onto a motorcycle completely, and even proved helpful for different sports activities like kayaking and backpacking. And with the vary of capacities this Huge Agnes tent is available in, there’s an possibility that may meet everybody’s wants.

This tent has are available clutch on my latest bikepacking excursions, backpacking journeys, and kayaking expeditions and can proceed to. Like most of Huge Agnes’ merchandise, this can be a very useful, dependable piece of drugs for going the space, irrespective of the way you do it.