Any New Tarptent Motrail Reviews?

I’m a fan of Henry Shires’ work and I agree that his TarpTents really nail the price/performance point well. The horizontal spreader bar on the MoTrail concerns me a little. If I had one of these I’d probably want to use it with two trekking poles to keep the entry more open but the experience my son has had with his SMD Skyscape Trekker Scout has left me leary of any design that involves trekking poles in a parallelogram configuration. In the Skyscape, a side wind can pop the trekking poles out of the spreader bar even if it’s staked out carefully with good tension.

I have no actual experience with the MoTrail so please take my comment with a very large grain of salt. Also, I suspecty concern would be addressed by using the more default single pole configuration…

The only similarity I see between the TT MoTrail and the SMD Scout is the use of two trekking poles to stand up.
Apart from that, they look rather different to me, but maybe it is just me…

The best review I found was a German page that my browser translated into English. Fortunately for them, but not readers, the writer’s experience did not involve any rain or windy conditions.

In theory, this tent looks like a nice option at its price point. Of course there are lighter options at higher prices.

If it’s any help, a friend of mine has a Protrail and it is very good in the wind. Only had a bit of rain and it was fine… no reason it should have any problem with deluges.

One observation about the Motrail and rain… I wonder if that strip down the middle would provide a point of collection for rain water. Even with flat tarps, with a low storm pitch, sometimes water can collect at the foot end.

The Protrail pitches fairly easily and the construction quality is excellent, and I would expect no less from the Motrail.

@franco, I don’t think Matthew was saying that the tents were similar, he was saying that the way they use a spreader bar with two trekking poles is similar and he’d had problems with the trekking pole to spreader connection on the Scout.

Thanks, William. That is exactly what I was saying.

One correction. I said used the wrong term earlier when I said parallelogram. I meant this shape:

Franco/Henry/anyone who has used the tent: How does the MoTrail deal with side loading when using two poles? Is there some mechanism in place to keep the spreader bar from deflecting sideways and having the poles pop out of the spreader bar connection? That’s the weak point on the Skyscape IMO.

We have the rainshadow 2. The rainshadow is a bigger tent but they look similar. We have used the heck out of it. One of the drawbacks is it has a rather large footprint. This might be a factor depending where you live. Again, ours is a bigger tent. The pitch is better if we use two trekking poles vs the one pole setup. Rain did collect in the center channel once or twice depending on the angle we set it up. But it never leaked through so it wasn’t an issue. The door configuration is generally seen as not as good as duel side entrances but it was never an issue for us. I like the tent and it’s a nice simple design!

I have a Squall 2, which is a similar design and I love it.  The Motrail seems to address  the the shortcomings of the Squall: the venting and the front beak system.

Thanks! This is on my shopping list.

Does Tarptent ever have sales?