Big Agnes Tensleep Station 4
So the folks at Big Agnes (thanks, Rob!) were kind enough to support our team for 2018, and we received our camping gear a bit early to put everything to the test! My fiancee and I typically sleep in a four person tent from Marmot which allows a 6ft tall human to stand up for clothing changes. We have no complaints about this tent. Well, we had no complaints anyways!
Jon is nearly 6 ft 7 inches tall, for reference. This tent is ROOMY and TALL!
For starters, this tent is for CAR CAMPING. It comes in around 14lbs total packed weight. This tent is ROOMY. We easily had enough space for four people to camp, but our typical setup is two people plus a plethora of riding, running and other gear. This tent allowed us to spread everything out completely.
Lots of thought went into the design of this unit, and it shows. We chose to set it up at night, in the dark, after a ten hour drive, with no prior experience or research. It was the perfect experiment! At first we thought "this is insane, so many parts!" but we were just tired. Within 5-8 minutes we had the tent fully assembled, staked, and ready to go. That first night, to be honest, we wondered why in the world someone would want such a massive tent... And then we awoke to a new day from within...
After a few first aid sweep laps, I wandered around to find my lovely lady... She likes a bit of quiet time, which is hard to find at a massive bicycle party! Well, it turns out, this "living room" vestibule design ROCKS! Big Agnes advertises this area as a nice waterproof place to sip whiskey and play cards on their Helinox furniture sets, but we found it to also be a great hiding spot for introverts!
She found solitude amongst the party!!!
We found the color-coded tabs to be critical for setup, keeping things dead-simple.
Another side note, we determined that another magical function of the added living space exists: It's an emergency POTTY PALACE!
On that note, we end! Buy this tent if you have a need for standing room, extra space for gear (and extra folks, on occasion) and if you find yourself sometimes wishing you had a covered/rainfree living space to hang out, sip whiskey, play cards, hide from others, or just take a private potty at 3am. Cheers!