Motorcycle Camping – Yes Really, Camping

Motorcycle camping is a mystery to me. When you have powered transport that can take you to a comfortable Bed and Breakfast, with hot showers and a warm bed, why use it to transport yourself to a field and sleep on the floor?

And yet, as the trip planning for 2022 continues, it appears that after Spain and Portugal, we are returning to the west of Scotland and discovering that Scotland doesn’t end at Oban. Oh no. Roger has designs on Lewis, Harris and the Uist Islands.

What could possibly go wrong? I think I’ll start a list.

Motorcycle Camping Tents

Winter is an excellent time to buy a tent. Or at least it appears that way. All of the online shops I’ve visited are having Winter Sales. I’m guessing very few people in Northern Europe want to buy a tent in winter.

But I have no idea what sort of tent I want. I can figure out that it needs to be light and pack down as small as possible. Being waterproof and quick to erect are two other requirements, but I have no idea what I’m looking at after that.

Dome, stealth, pop-up or a ridge tent. Two-man, solo, with a porch or without, and why waterproof ratings are quoted in millimetres – seriously, 2,000mm hydrostatic head is a waterproof rating – is all lost on me.

It did occur to me that I need a two-person tent even though it is just me. As I don’t intend to sleep in my riding gear, I will need somewhere to store my gear overnight and outside with the bike isn’t a good idea.

Price and Value

And then there is the subject of money. If motorcycle camping is a way of keeping the cost of a tour down, then a tent and all the other camping gear has to be a financially sound investment.

Here’s my half-baked logic. If a B&B or cheap hotel is £50 a night, five nights will cost me £250. If I enjoy motorcycle camping and can get everything I need for £250, it is cash in the bank every night after that.

The more I invest, the more nights camping I need before I should have gone to a B&B and left sleeping in a field to the others.

A £250 price point is looking somewhat optimistic. Tents range in price from £30 to £300, and I will need more than just a tent if I want to be comfortable.

We are going to Scotland, you know it will rain at least once, so a waterproof tent – a properly waterproof tent – is an absolute requirement, regardless of the cost.

But what is the difference between a £300 tent and the one I found in the Go Outdoors Sale for £30?

At £30, the Eurohike Cairns 2 DLX Nightfall Tent is either precisely what a virgin to motorcycle camping needs or a complete waste of money. The tent looks to have everything I need, but I wonder if I’m not just chucking my money away.

According to the advert, it would have cost £110 at one time and was then discounted to £60 and now £30. It could be the bargain of the year or cheap rubbish. I have no idea.

Top Dog

The King of Motorcycle Camping Tents appears to be the Lone Rider ADV tent, and considering how little I know about tents, the Lone Rider ADV looks impressive.

Lone Rider even went as far as detailing how to erect the tent in the rain so that everything stays dry – except the bit designed to keep the rain off me.

With a waterproof rating of 10,000-millimetre – which I still don’t understand – the Lone Rider ADV weighs in at 3.35 kg (7.38 lbs) and packs down to 41x15cm (16.1“x5.9”), which would fit inside my 42 Litre Givi Dolomiti top box, or strap on top without overhanging.

At £300, it is pushing the number of nights I need to sleep in a field to break even on my investment, but Lone Rider equipment is designed specifically for the motorcycle market, so it looks like the investment I should be making.

The Route

We are still working out the details, but the first night stop will be just north of Perth on the A93 Cairngorms road and then on to Ullapool the next day. The evening ferry from Ullapool to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis arrives at 9 pm.

After a day exploring Lewis and Harris, and a short ferry crossing to the Uist Islands, we’ll head back to Oban from Lochboisdale which opens up the possibility of riding to Dunoon on the A83 and the A815, one of the finest 100-mile stretches of motorcycling tarmac in the UK.

And after one more night stop in Scotland, somewhere around the Galloway Forest, we’ll ride home across the Pennines. As soon as we get the route worked out, it will be uploaded onto the Route Page.

But before any motorcycle camping can happen, I need a tent and some other basics. I think a trip to one of the large Outdoor Adventure shops is on my horizon early in 2022.

Any recommendations on what a motorcycle camping virgin should be looking for? 

Credits

The header image is based on an original work by Piviso. The motorcyclists in a field image is based on an image created by Luis Pimenttel. Both are used under license.