BIKEPACKING TENTS – 3F UL GEAR LAN SHAN 1 vs ALPKIT TARPSTAR 1 (DISASTER)

Here we go then, here is the answer to how the new tent is going, or not going really. This video took ages because of all the hassle I had with 3F UL Gear. But I can finally release this video. The Lan shan 1 vs the tarpstar 1. Hopefully give you a bit of insight into the two tents, and I will be back with a long term review of the tarpster 1 at some point in the future. (If I decide to keep it)

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The gear I am currently using

The tent – https://youtu.be/n9GKHSf805E
Frame bag – https://youtu.be/6LM3UJKDOEk
Seat post bag – https://youtu.be/W1E_iWY6Ajo
Jones Handlebars – https://youtu.be/dhPBSdRros8
Gravel bike – https://youtu.be/Gnd_4LgTyrg
plus bike MTB – https://youtu.be/COTUOzLPbGk
GPS device – https://youtu.be/BWeMmx62A9M
MTB shoes – https://youtu.be/OYVEnfXwT0k
All the gear from GNT – https://youtu.be/e5oKSoPoMk0
Vest bag – https://youtu.be/01nzgd-t550
Ortleib bar roll https://youtu.be/Uk9fLgS1ioo
Dynamo setup – https://youtu.be/SL7MhjB6Lp0
Questions answered – https://youtu.be/u1q9AEs9flE
Gb divide bike/gear- https://youtu.be/epcZ81wqFCo

Welcome to More keep smiling adventures and today we are going to be talking tents the tents we are going to be talking about today are the lanchan 1 and the alpkit topster one this isn’t going to be a long-term review as I haven’t spent enough time with them for

That so this is going to be more of a first impressions first look kind of video the basics you need to know although there is the elephant in the room that we need to discuss why I now have the topster one and why I no longer

Have the lanchan one but we will get into that later with that being said let’s start with the Lan Shan one the lanchan one is a oneperson one Poole 10 made by 3F UL gear it is essentially a carbon copy cheaper version of the six Moon designs Luna

Solo this means you even need a treking pole if you are on this channel you are more likely into riding bikes which means you will need a single pole the one I have here is the gam counter 125 cm carbon pole pitching the tent is fairly simple however I will say it does

Take a bit of practice to get a really good pitch and sometimes if the ground isn’t perfectly level it can be almost impossible to get that perfect pitch meaning airflow might not be the best you start by staking out the Four Corners after that you insert the pole

The top of the tent has a reinforced area for the pole to sit in however if you are using the pole I have here the gram counter one I’d recommend sticking something a bit less pointy to give the tent some protection for longevity here I have put a door stopper on the end

These can be picked up for a couple of pounds and fit this pole perfectly from here you will need to stake the top guid line out which will give you the shape of the tent this guideline does actually come with a clip that you can use to

Hook the tent doors onto however I didn’t really see the point so removed it and just staked the door with a peg separately figured it would be a little less faffy in the cold days when I’m trying to set up the tent with gloves once you have everything staked down you

Can go around and use the toggles on each Peg hole and tighten to get a more solid construction there are also three extra guidelines to stake down if you need to when pitching this tent you can pitch the inner and outer to the same Peg for requiring less pegs however I

Did find it slightly easier to get the inner set up better if you stake the inner down after the outer set separately once all set up and inside you will find a fairly spacious tent for such a small pack size I am 6′ 6 and you

Can see if I’m laying on my back flat my toes will just about touch the inner mesh if you are as tall or taller than me and you sleep either on your back or your front then this might not be long enough for you the inside measures about

210 CM as the tent slopes up it is actually slightly less if you are 6′ 3 or below I think you’ll be fine I actually slept fine in this as I’m a side sleeper the tent has a side opening with a zipper that you can fully open

For easy access to the storage area outside there is a small pocket on one side for stuff you don’t want to lose while you’re sleep in and also a hook that you can use to hang a light you can also sit up in the middle of this tent

But you will probably still be touching the bug net as it is quite loose and falls into the tent a bit so that’s a quick introduction to the lancham one let’s take a look at some quick Specs the cost of this tent varies a bit and I’ve actually had two of these now and the first one cost me £125 and the second one cost me £17 this one came directly from 3F themselves but I have seen these selling on Amazon for around the £ 150 Mark so

The price really varies depending on where you get it from the weight of this tent is 760 G that’s just the tent on its own the tent is about 810 G with pegs and dry bag that this 10 does actually come with or about 910 G with

The footprint which I do not have in this video the pack size is nice and compact a small dry bag is what the tent is shipped with and can be compressed to get this tent very compact The alkit Soloist 10 I was using before does actually pack down to about the same

Size as this lanchan one for reference however the space saving comes from the pole the one pole single pole is of course a lot smaller like I mentioned before the pole is not included when you buy this tent the one I have here is the gram counter five-piece carbon pole that

Weighs less than 100 G about 76 G is the claimed weight but add a little bit extra for the door stop that I’ve added which I also recommend adding cuz it works really well this pole also comes in a three section version which is about the same weight slightly cheaper

£30 instead of £35 for the 5 section one the difference really is just the length when folded there are of course other options from six moons alpkit or if you are hiking then you can of course use your trk-ing poles if you use them the nonpr version which this tent is does

Come seam sealed well supposedly it does and it sort of does but I definitely had a few areas where I noticed some drips getting through so I think you might need to uh touch it up a little little bit Possibly okay there is the lanchan 11 and its specs and the setup but there is some things that need to be talked about with this tent and I know I said this won’t be a long-term review of how each 10 is held up but with the lancham 1 I

Had issues from day one that actually means I don’t have this tent anymore so what happened well well first I purchased this tent from wood to water and received it just before Christmas and upon pulling the tent out of that dry bag I noticed there was some damage

To the tent where the outer connects to the inner okay first straight in but not the end of the world I contacted wood who said they will contact 3F UL gear or whatever their name is and get back to me I wait and wait I contact them again

And wait some more but nothing I’m just being ghosted at this point so I have paid with PayPal so I go through the dispute process and eventually I get to send it back for a refund in the meantime I had brought this tent again but this time directly from

3F it does come from China so there is a little wait time doing this however it was less than 2 weeks so not too bad I inspect the 10 and all seems fine however after setting up the tent and spending the night in it I wake up and

Start packing up the tent I start packing up the tent and again I can see damage in the same area the stitching the connects the inner to the outer was coming apart once more which then led to 3F UL gear to just tell me to REO it up

Now if this was a well-used t then fine but this was a brand new tent they then proceed to tell me it looks like the damage is not due to a quality issue but ripped apart from Force which I knew was not possible I made sure to be extra

Careful with this one they did offer me a 10% refund if I fixed it myself but when I buy something brand new I don’t want it to have repairs from day one anyway long story short it was another PayPal dispute but but there is one more

Thing the two exact same tents I had were different even though they were from the same company or at least claimed to be however the first one I received minus the damage the inside of the tent was significantly more spacious the inner bug net seemed to not fall down and be

Less saggy as much as the one I received directly from 3F the one from 3F was much smaller in size also the first one I had seemed to have a bigger storage area outside than the one from 3F I had someone with me while setting up both of these tents and they

Agreed with me on this everything else seemed the same apart from the hook to hang a light from in a slightly different location so if you decide to buy this tent you should be aware that different people will most likely be receiving slightly different variations

Of the exact same 10 now you could say that I was unlucky or somehow I did something wrong while setting this tent up to cause this I do not believe that but one thing at this point was I do not trust this tent and as soon as I don’t

Trust a piece of equipment I just cannot use it now I think a good question to ask now is would it be worth spending the extra money to go with the six Moon design Luna solo tent essentially it’s the exact same tent but with a company

Like six moons you expect a bit more quality control over their products and lots of people love that tent but that tent would cost around £330 maybe a bit more maybe a bit less honestly for me that’s just too much for a tent especially for one that has no

Pole doesn’t come seam Sil doesn’t even come with pegs there comes a point where I would not want to use something in case I damage it and break it I would become too paranoid because it’s too expensive so therefore for me it’s a no the way that 10 works is nice but not

Worth that price tag also the lanchan although lighter and it does technically pack down slightly smaller than my old Alit soloist 10 it hasn’t actually saved me any space on the bike if anything it has taken away space as I am now a little reluctant to strap the pole to

The bar roll bag as I feel it’s likely to damage it so it goes in the frame bag taking away the more important pasty storage area but ultimately that’s why I won’t be continuing to use the lanchan one because I have lost trust in that

Tent and I’m not prepared to try it for a third time to be honest that’s why I now have the alkit topster one so let’s take a look at that shall we the topster one is also a one pole 10 by alkit a traditional pyramid shaped 10

The pole is the same as the one I used with the lanchan one but you can also use a trekking pole as well for the hikers out there this T also comes in a twers and a four person version actually the outer on the one person and a two

Person is exactly the same and you can buy the one person inner separately but as far as I can see you cannot buy the twers inner separately hopefully that will be an option at some point however the version I have here is the one person it comes completely seam sealed

And with all the stakes you will need and some spare fabric for pairs setting this tent up is fairly similar to the lancham one it can be set up inner or outer first if you are wondering if you can just use the inner only I’d say kind

Of probably work better with an actual hiking pole as you can see here with the pole it’s not particularly stable so it would have to be a very very calm night for me to use this just in only I’m not really sure it’s designed to be used

That way but it can be used outer only if you don’t want to use a bug net start out with Stak in the four corners of the outer and simply place the pole into the reinforced area in the top of the tent you also have a further three extra

Guidelines you can use and Each corner has a toggle to tighten or loosen the tension on the outer very similar to the lancham one once you have the pyramid shape it’s time to get the inner tent set up now there is the way I do it here

I feel like this is the way you would want to set it up if it was Heavy Rain at the time and then the way I think alkit have designed this to be put up the inner tent still needs the pole to be inserted into its little pouch which

Means if you have got to the stage of the outer being up and ready you kind of have to hold the pole lifting the outer up a little to be able to slide the little pouch bit between the pole and the outer I hope that makes sense it

Feels like there should just be a hook that you hang the inner to the outer or a clip so really the way you would put this up is the inner and outer at the same time as you insert the pole you would want to place the inner at the

Same time once the inner is in place you have a further Four Pegs to stake down this can be achieved without leaving the tent orbe it it is a little awkward crawling around the inner can be pitched either side of the tent but not at the

Back as it’s not square but a rectangle so the back isn’t long enough it’s a bit of an issue but I will get to that later once all set up you can see you have loads and loads of storage space essentially a whole person’s worth of

Storage but no before you ask it doesn’t quite fit inside the inner is very simple just a hook to hang your light and just like the lanchan you can sit up but the bug net hangs into the tent quite a lot the tent is about the same

Length as the lanchan once again my feet will just touch the bug net if I lay flat let’s take a look at the quick specs Topster one retails at $159.99 but I did pick this up for £126 in the sale with a voucher it weighs slightly more than the lanchan at a weight of about 950 G about a kilo with the pole the outer weighs 500 G and the inner weighs 450 G the pack size is a

Bit bigger than the Shan alkit don’t really give you a compression sack just a basic drawring bag when squished down into this or 9 L Barrow bag it takes up around half of the bag maybe just under it’s mostly the outer that takes up the space as you can see the inner squishes

Down to a tiny small little ball the tent comes seam sealed and with pegs ready to use straight away I got to test this one because it was raining on the first out in and everything stayed Dry now I haven’t had a whole lot of time to use both of these tents but let’s take a look at The Good the Bad and the Ugly from what I have seen so far and what I got to experience with the lancham one this is true for both

Tents they are good actually great shapes for dealing with the wind it won’t matter if the wind changes in a night the shape of both tents mean they will deal with the wind fine as long as you have staked the tent out good both have a really great pack size

The lancham one is slightly better here than the alkit but both are really good the alkit is a slightly bigger 10 also they do both come seam sealed and with everything you need to just take them out straight away I personally always think this is how everything should come

I don’t want to buy something and have to do the work myself to be able to use it with a bit of practice I think both of these could be put up pretty quickly and especially in bad weather this one is aimed at the out kit more but the

Lanchan is pretty good too the outdoor space if you have lots of Piers or wet gear that you don’t want inside your tent you will have loads of room with the alkit the lanchan has a good small footprint meaning it can be pitched in smaller spaces the lanchan is also super

Easy to get in and out with the easy wide side doors however the outfit not so much the AL kit is actually very awkward to get in and out of as you have to kind of Cru out as the inner tent is to the side of the door this is made worse when

Having the inner on the side I have it here as the inner door doesn’t zip all the way it’s not like this on the other side so it’s probably less of an issue if you have the inner on the opposite side however getting in and out is is

Quite awkward this one is subjective but the footprint of the alkit is a bit too big for me I can see me having to give up camp spots that I might have taken with The Soloist or even the lanchan also I just don’t need that much outside

Space I’d actually like to see a true oneperson outer for this tent with the footprint shrunk a bit and with the inner able to be at the back of the tent this would also to help with getting in and out both the lanchan and the AL kit

Seem to suffer from this one at least the second lanchan that I tried the bug net is just too saggy and falls into the tent a bit too much the out kit seems like it could be solved if it had an extra Peg around the middle back of the

Inner it could push it too close to the outer though the quality control on the lanchan even if you ignore the damage 10 having two of the same tents that are not the same size isn’t great if you order this tent you are not really sure

What you are going to get I’m glad they give these but the lanchan pegs are generally quite bad they have a habit with the guidelines slipping off this one is also another subjective one here but both the lanchan and the alkit being a non-freestanding 10 meaning you are

Relying on being able to get somewhere good you can stake out the tent I’m not sure the weight Advantage is all that worth it especially when it’s the bike that carries that weight and not my back so there we have it that’s the tent situation I’m currently in the lanchan

Is gone and I can’t see myself trying it again in the near future so for now I will continue to use the tapster one for a while but time will tell if I decide to continue using it so until next time keep smiling enjoy the adventure Peace