I was going to buy one of the cheap pop up tents from Argos for £30 or so. Has anyone ever used a cheap pop up tent? I’m wanting a new cheap tent as I’m too long for my old trusty £7 2 man tent. Are they more bulky than a standard small 2 man tent when packed up? This is important due to the tent having to fit on pannier rack etc. Will also be used for over night costal trips in the car etc.

The only pop up tents I’ve seen fold up into a flat disc shape, a bit like a large round shield – bigger than a 26 inch wheel in diameter. No good for panniers, but fine for carrying in cars. You can usually carry them on your back, but on a bike you risk taking off!

They are good, but the ones i have seen tend to fold up into something resembling a large frisbee. Definitely not rack mountable! Mines great for bike events etc when i can just roll up in the car and set up, also allows a quick getaway which is helpful in the rain. Just too big for use on the bike =/

You can get them that fold up into a cylinder – but not for £30 from argos. Khyam are one brand.

A £30 argos tent will be disposable and / or heavy I would have thought

So one of the 2 man ones will pack down to be a bit bigger than a MTB wheel? This sounds like a bad idea then! My tent not is little over a foot long and about 5 inch wide.

TJ It has to be cheap mainly as it could become disposable ie when an angry farmer tells me to get off his field sharpish!

IMHO the are a total gimmick and not worth the cash unless its for kipping in your back garden when you are 8.

They take an engineering degree to get back into their sack which, as others have said is a large flat disc about 60cm diameter – only any good if you have a car.

A ‘normal’ tent will take a bit long to erect, but will be far quicker to strike and pack away and will pack up in a much more ‘pannier-able’ way.

Go-Outdoors were selling some OK tents for around £30 last time I popped in. May be worth a look. Like this.

I’ve got a Vaude Taurus tent which is not far off a pop up tent in the time it takes to put up, but that’s way off your stated price range I’m afraid.

We’ve had one of the decathlon 2 second tents for about 3 years. We use it about 4 or 5 times a year but its been very good, goes up quick, takes a bit of practice getting back down again and appears to stand up to a fair bit of wind and also doesn’t leak.
For this year we’ve added a base station which is a 2.5m square pop up sitting area which links to the 2 second tent with greater stability and weather protection than a 4 leg gazebo. No problems with the Bristol weather over the weekend and took about 5 minutes to take down and pack away.

Is this actually for two people or just yourself? If the latter, then the famous Argos PA-1 is what you want.

It can only be classed as a summer tent ,i dont believe its that waterproof.
Probably best suited to the kids or a festival where you’re too pissed to care.

Just myself druidh. The 2 man tents are a bit cosy for blokes to share! Not bad if its a female like!

I have a pop-up for car camping it’s really weather proof. in the storm this weekend I looked around the site and it seemed the only one not flapping around due to it’s low profile, curvy shape and generally tight construction. I was super-cosy and quite a lot drier than those in conventional tents. I would not dream of trying to walk or cycle with it, though!

Halfords have been selling a nice big pop up. Used ours at SSUK. It was up in no time.

I took a ‘proper’ tent with poles and everything on Trans Wales last year. It was great fun spending 15 minutes pitching it every single night and taking it down every single morning at 7am. (More often than not in the rain)

After 7 days I was cursing the smug people with their Decathlon quecha pop ups. Interestingly after what appeared to be three years of rain in one week, none of them were wet.

I’ve just bought one 🙂

Trans Wales and trans Scotland. 1st generation 2 second Quechua from decathlon as described above. It has never leaked (tempting fate here) and has coped admirably with fairly hefty winds, one evening on the TS casued damage to many other tents. Its not meant to be a north face of the eiger but its suprising how good it actually is. 5 mins practice and you will be packing it in 20 seconds. We have gone for the base as well, brilliant.
If you can find the older style 2 second tents that fold into a slightly bigger disc go for them. They have thicke rpoles and seen to have more tension.

Alexonabike, they may not be suitable for his panniers but the rest of what you say IMHO is pish.

I have a eurohike pop up tent thingy which cost about £30. It has stood up to Bristol this w/e and the 2007 24/12 which was just about as wet as it gets. Perfectly waterproof, nice and toasty (in fact I had to open the flap this w/e at Bristol cos I was too hot). Anyway, cr@p if you are on a bike but for trolling up at an event in a car or for an ad hoc night or two camping, I couldn’t ask for better.

Apparantly you can get 3 or 4 man pop up ones from decathlon. im planning to buy one for leeds festival this summer. My mates have got some and there very good and easy to put up.

Heheee!

I’m one of the ones Vdubber is curseing!
🙂

I bought myself an Outwell Jersey pop-up for the TransWales. Outwell tents are a cut above the rest and not cheap, mine was about £55. But the cheaper ones bend like long grass in a half decent wind. Mine was fully waterproof and steady as a rock for the entire (sodden) week and took seconds to erect and take down. It took me and all my kit easily, but would have been snug for 2 people. Brilliant bit of kit
🙂

Remember this ‘campsite’ Vdubber? 😉

Looks good PP.

Do you get condensation / water coming into the tent when you open up the entrance ?

Do you get condensation / water coming into the tent when you open up the entrance ?

If it’s raining you can’t stop it! But it’s reasonably well vented and condensation wasn’t too bad.

And it’s a two skin tent yes ?

The camping place near Tilford is a stockist, tempted to pop over at the w/e.

PP – that’s the campsite on the second day I believe. Why I chose to camp at the top fo the hill I will never know. Especially since was already limping badly by that point. 🙂

You’re not doing it again this year are you? (I’m not – off to Italy for a stage race in the dry!)