Tent-ative about Camping?? (Tents in General)

Member Name: josarah

Product:	Tents in General
Date:	26/07/05 (2778 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see review

Disadvantages: see review

The tent that's more like a home away form home

A BIT OF BACKGROUND TO START WITH:

One spring afternoon may other half and I decided to take our first holiday. We booked for 4 days and 3 nights into a hotel in Paris. 4 days and 3 nights later we were back at our respective homes, still talking to one another, still happy together and with no blood spilt, talking about how we really ought to do it again. Now I'm no fan of beachy type holidays, going to bed at 7am and getting up at 5pm, preferring instead to be a bit more down to earth and peaceful, for me a holiday should be about recharging the batteries, seeing some interesting sights and enjoying good food and drink (not grabbing a quick kebab on the way home from a night drinking vodka cocktails although this approach does have a few merits occasionally).

What better way to have a peaceful holiday than to go camping, you arrive at a campsite, see everyone else's tent already set up and feel the pressure. Decide that your tent will be perfectly set up also and that your instructions on how to attain such perfection of tent erection are so right you don't have to look at the instructions. What then follows (if it all goes according to plan) is that the person you are travelling with has a strop and goes and sits in the car to save an act of violence from occurring on the first day of your holiday. You, feeling smug, finish putting up the tent (with a sneaky glimpse towards the instructions) make up with your partner who now gets out of the car and retire for the evening (regardless of your arrival time at the campsite, the light is normally fading by this point).

In the night it starts to rain and a gusty wind gets up, you startle awake and begin to worry, did you peg everything in? Will the tent stand up to the weather? You didn't. It doesn't, and the following morning the tent is in the bin, you're on your way to an expensive hotel booked at very short notice and the violent act occurred on the second day of the holiday.

Having spoken to a few of my friends I have come to the realisation that these incidents actually do happen. Fortunately they have never happened to me (although it was a close run thing with the barbeque). Perhaps I am a calm kind of person (although I do tend to be right most of the time) or maybe we just have a fabulous tent that is easy to put up, take down and is sturdy and dry in all types of weather.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you the Lichfield Madrid 5DLX…….

SHAPE

The Madrid is what is known as a 'tunnel' tent. This basically means that it is tunnel shaped, with an entrance at one end and 2 bedrooms at the other. The front door can be zipped out completely, leaving a gaping mouthed tunnel, or part of it can be rolled back and tied to one side, leaving a smaller, yet still fairly large gaping hole.
SIZE

The main attraction of this tent to ourselves was the overall size. As it's name suggests this is a 5 man deluxe tent so there is plenty of space for a couple. There are 2 bedroom areas, one which we use as the master bedroom that should sleep 3 people, and another that we use as a wardrobe/changing area that sleeps 2 people. Personally I wouldn't recommend that 5 adults go away for any length of time in this tent, unless you were very good friends and regularly slept together in very close quarters. Outside of the bedrooms there is a reasonably large dining area for use when it's raining. I say reasonably large as we can fit 2 large lounging chairs and a round patio table in this area and still have room around the outside for games and food etc. Apparently the tent is about 3.5m wide and about 5m long in total, although over 2 metres at the back is devoted to bedroom space. The front of the tent can be moved backwards about 1.5m to create a sort of porch like structure at the front. Very handy for wellies and things if using the tent in the rainy season. One thing I will say is that when packed into its storage bag this tent is really heavy (I struggle to lift it out the car) about 35kgs I think, so it's probably not suitable for one adult to move around on their own.

LIGHT, BRIGHT AND AIRY

There are a few windows around the tent. The front of the tent has 1 largish window and 2 smaller triangular windows. All of these windows have darker coloured 'curtains' which help keep the morning sun out. Each side of the tent, either side of the door, has a large window which while not having built in curtains does offer privacy due to the plastic frosted glass effect on them. The tent also has some air vents at regular intervals around the tent (a total of 5 in all). All of this means that the tent is light (obviously not at night time), bright (obviously not when it's dull) and airy (obviously when not….in a vacuum?) and that you are able to conserve precious gas from your lamps for real darkness.

PUTTING IT UP

This is when you may regret buying that dead flashy all singing, all dancing tent that looked so great when it was erected at the shop. When you first see a tent that you want to buy look at how it has been put up, it may be really complicated. The Madrid 5DLX is very easy to put up. It consists of 6 poles, 4 of which are made up 0f 3 separate parts. In total in the pole bag you should have 8 steel poles that go with 4 carbon fibre ones. This makes the basic frame of the tent. Running along the insides of the tent are 2 longer poles which keep the whole thing rigid. There are also 2 poles for the side door. So, firstly you peg the back of the tent so that it stays in the intended position, secondly my advice is to thread the frame poles through the pockets (on the outside of the tent) without joining them up. Next you should join up the 3 sections of the back pole and pull the tent upright. Follow this procedure for the other 3 frame poles and then pull out to tighten the canvas. There is a strap system employed which will go under the groundsheet and keeps the poles spaced correctly, basically you then have to go round and make sure each corner of the strap is poked up the bottom of the poles (sound interesting I know). Next you just thread the internal long poles through the loops and add tension to the length of the tent. Tighten the tension straps, peg down the rest of the canvas, spread out the guide ropes and put down the groundsheet then connect the inner tents. Congratulations, you have now erected your home from home. If you want a side door you can lift up a door flap and secure it with poles and guide ropes. What I will say however is that I wouldn't attempt this with just one person. Have a person on either side putting the tent up evenly.

TAKING IT DOWN

To take the tent down again you just reverse the process. Simple really, although you then have to try and fit it back into the bag from whence it came. To do this I would remember exactly which bit came from which part of the bag. The bag has 3 sections (the pole and peg section is quite easy to remember, 2 of which are around the same size and fit in the groundsheet and inner tents and the canvas respectively. If you try to put the canvas back into the wrong section of the bag you will likely get very mad and swear lots! Another bit of advice would be to fold the canvas on the groundsheet to prevent extra dampness and keep it relatively clean.

STABILITY WEATHERPROOFING DURABILITY

The tent is really stable and doesn't feel as if it will fall over in the slightest of winds. It has never leaked in the time we have had it and doesn't really suffer from major condensation. What I would make sue of however is that you tuck the 'mudflaps' which go around the whole tent underneath the groundsheet to ensure that no rain comes in at all. The bottom metre or so of the canvas is made from a rubbery kind of material which provides extra security against dampness as no water comes through, even if things are against the canvas. In terms of durability we have used this tent for around 3 years now and it is still near perfect (if a little dirtier). Nothing has broken on it or dropped off and we are completely happy with it. In fact we shall be checking it in the next few weeks ready for our next trip to France.

VALUE FOR MONEY

This tent has been a real bargain as we paid around £200 for it, we have taken it abroad for 6 weeks holiday and it has been used for extra sleeping space at home for family. Adding campsite charges and ferry costs we (as a couple) have enjoyed 3 years main holidays for around £1500, including accommodation! How ace is that.

IN SUMMARY

If you are contemplating buying a tent, or don't really know what to do with yourself at holiday time I couldn't recommend this tent more. It is easy to put up and comes in a compact if ridiculously heavy bag which makes packing easy. It is big enough for a family to use or is luxurious for a couple. We always get comments about this tent from people and envious looks as we're cracking open a beer after about 45 minutes of tent erection, whereas other people are still arguing after an hour and a half. A fabulous tent which offers great value for money and will last a lifetime.

Summary: see review