Outdoor

 

Keep it simple - and proved: No experiments in outdoor equipment.
 
Outdoor life  leaves its mark on man and machine. 

 

 

 


 What has been proven in storm, rain, snow and scorching sun.

What worked when you needed it - without fashionable frills.
 
What didn't fall off the bike, not even at 120 on the gravel track.

What is easy to maintain - and even easier to repair, if it for once doesn't work or the bike with the rider fell on it.


 

 

Keep it simple instead of "nice to have" -

 

We hope to provide some idea for some of you, just as we could find useful advice in other travelers' experience.  But please let no one stop you from making your own good experiences.

These ones maybe could stop you from some bad ones instead....


 
 Tent VAUDE MARK III LONG

The VAUDE MARK III LONG successor of the after more than 20 years (after a slight overhaul) fully functional gave away MARK II.  The MARK II was an absolutely faithful companion - and has found its place with our biker friends in Siberia.

The MARK III LONG  is improved in some details and also being used for three years now in the outdoors as a just as reliable companion.

The build-up time of the Mark II is thanks to an absolutely ingenious design concept to beat only by inflating a garbage bag, the materials are of high quality and durable, bulk and weight in relation to a motorbike traveler perfectly acceptable, and the space available was with two large apses luxurious when traveling alone, for 2 persons still perfectly adequate.

While even violent rainfalls did not make it into the tent, it remains a permanent nuisance, that nowadays in all lightweight tents built light for weight reasons the ground sheets are a constant nuisance. Not only in this tent though.

Without rain-proof tent pad all the equipment is exposed to the wet from the bottom - therefore the weight advantage of the lightweight tent goes directly in to the pad.

 By the way: the Mark III like its predecessors continues to stand quite solid without pegs on rocky ground - and in the morning this tent is released of sand and stones within two minutes.

For us the MARK III LONG is the one and only traveling tent, if you add on practical details as small clothesline, storage compartments and very good 2-way zippers in the tent, etc.

But the zippers in the MARK III are transversely  designed, stupid thing to do. No idea why it was made that way, the meaning eludes the traveler. The entry happens to be much more difficult this way, and the zippers are unnecessarily wide open (Mosquitos !!) and worn out (since it must be opened twice as far to enter the tent or even to put something in or get it out). 

top
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Ride Of Smiles - 50.000 miles