Massdrop Announces Dan Durston X Mid Tent: 2 People, 2 hiking poles, 28 oz, $199

[Link .]

I agree with Dan’s comments and I think the thread was started more for the excitement that a long time valued member had something they designed for sale on a site that some members frequent but others on BPL never go to and would never have known about. Dan didn’t start the thread or try to advertise or sell anything in his contributions, it was not about a gear deal but a design and congratulations. But this thread seemed more like an advertisement for a tent that would be available that was posted in the regular GEAR section of the forums by the person who would have profited from them and having everyone on BPL know about it would have helped

. THE CAFFIN TENTS COME! .

[Roger Caffin]

Comments, public and private, appreciated. I am outvoted. So I have restored the thread to Gear.

Cheers
Roger Caffin

[Stumphges]

Dan, how wind worthy is the X Mid, in comparison to a Duomid or Khufu, or Stratospire?

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I’ll comment on “stormworthyness” in general – so snow, wind and rain.

Wall angles are a big part of “stormworthyness” but there is a trade off here because shallow walls are good for shedding wind, while steeper angles are better for shedding snow. One important thing is for a tent to have consistent wall angles since a tent with one vertical panel and one horizontal panel would struggle in both wind and snow. A tents only as good as the weakest link. A shelter like the MLD Trailstar has consistent panel slopes but they are very low angle so they are great in extreme winds, but below average for snow loading. The X-Mid also has consistent panel slopes but at a medium to slightly steep slope.

Snow
The SS1 has some steep panels that would shed snow, but then two flatter panels on top that wouldn’t (depending on how sticky the snow is, but my experience with the SS2 is that it usually sticks). Similarly, traditional mids have lower angled walls going to the ends, so again snow sticks on these and collects at the head/foot of the tent. This shortens the effective length and strains the tent. Conversely, the X-Mid has consistent panel slopes with no low angled panels, so I think it would easily shed snow better than the SS1 and a traditional mid. Also, the X-Mid uses polyester which doesn’t sag, whereas nylon sags under wet snow loads because it absorbs the moisture and his exacerbates catching snow as the low angled panels of the SS1 and MLD Mids sag and become more scoop like. But all of these shelters could handle a couple inches of snow, so I view the differences as largely academic rather than practical in the context of lightweight backpacking.

Wind
The side panels on the SS1 are at a shallower slope to the X-Mid side panels, and these long sides of the tent are where the most wind catching area exists. So by default I’d give a small advantage to the SS1, although the X-Mid has two extra stake out points spread out along the base of this long side, so I expect you could easily reduce the force per stake to less than the SS1 if you used these. With both shelters, it would be ideal to point the narrow end into the wind and use the optional stakes if winds are high. It’s also worth mentioning that the X-Mid pitches easily in high winds because there are no vulnerable steps to the pitch (see 1:33 of my video for an explanation), whereas the TT recommended pitching method the SS is  hard to do in high winds – but there are other ways of pitching it that I work better (stake the full base first before adding poles). I would say these tents are similar overall.

With regards to the X-Mid vs a DuoMid in the wind, I think both shelters would be plenty stormworthy for any reasonably encountered conditions. And I am also not too sure of the answer since it is complex. The X-Mid has more side area since there are two peaks versus one, but it also spreads that force over two poles versus one. My hunch is that the X-Mid would do a bit better in high winds for the reason that the sides are shorter so less “wind scooping”. What I mean is that the distance from the bottom hem to the peak (on any side) is less in the X-Mid because there are two peaks and any given side is closer to one of these peaks that it is the single peak on a one pole mid. So there is less potential for wind to blow in the sides into a scoop and catch more wind. But then again, the X-Mid walls are a bit steeper so this may totally offset the former point. Perhaps tipping the balance back towards the X-Mid is that it has peak guylines which can be optionally deployed and these do a really good job of anchoring the peaks and can provide a huge assist to the steeper side walls in high winds, while traditional mids don’t have these.

Rain
It’s hard to imagine a better tent for rain than the X-Mid. A good rain tent is going to pitch fly first, have plenty of vestibule space for wet gear, have a door that protects the inner from falling rain, have a door that is big enough to enter/exit without getting wet, great venting and have a fly that doesn’t sag in the rain. All of these tents are good rain tents as they satisfy most of these criteria but I think the X-Mid would be the best because no sag poly is amazing and the vents are well above average. When you’re used to waking up after an all night rain and having the fly stuck to the mesh somewhere, switching to poly is amazing. The tent looks just as good in the morning as it did when you pitched it. The X-Mid also has great vents (far more functional than the StratoSpire vents).

Overall I would say the X-Mid would easily win in the snow because it doesn’t have any low angles panels like the SS1 (roof panels) and traditional mids (end panels), and would also be the best in the rain. Wind resistance is perhaps similar in all of these tents and some pretty advanced testing would be needed to identify the differences.

Of these, I think rain performance is the most important in the sense that it is something is often encountered and performance here can make a real difference in the quality of life on your trip. Whereas high winds and snow are less common, and all of these tents would fair well enough that differences here are perhaps more academic than practical.

[Gumbo]

Again available on Massdrop.

[Ryan Smith]

“Again available on Massdrop.”

D@mn it, Durston. :)

Ryan

[Jeff McWilliams]

Aieeee!

 

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

A quick update on timelines:
Production is on track or slightly ahead to meet the April 19 estimated delivery for the first round of X-Mid’s sold in July. The estimated ship date for this second batch is May 20, but that’s quite conservative. The tents are all part of the same production run. The reason for the difference is that the handling/QA/shipping processes take a little time at Massdrop, so the first round of orders will ship out a little bit ahead of the second round of orders. The second round will likely follow a few days later or a week later, not a whole month.

[Dylan Atkinson]

I was so indecisive about joining the drop and when it ended I immediately regretted not joining.

Second chance! Congratulations Dan, it really looks like a well thought out, well designed tent. Can’t wait to use it.

[Boyan B]

Punched the “Join” button today despite some concerns about the rotated inner. $200 is a fairly low commitment as these things go, after all a good pair of hiking boots will set you back almost as much. Wish Dan had stuck with the grey color from the prototype tent. The green looks quite generic, at least if it is similar to the TT green. I figure worst case this goes on Gear Swap at 50-70% of my cost 9 months from now.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Thanks for the support Boyan.

I forget if I mentioned this already, but the images in the listing are photoshopped to be about the right color but I think the actual color has a bit more grey in it than that. The dye we are using is the pantone color 16-0110. It’s kind of a green-brown-grey. Here are swatches of that color, which should be the most accurate look at it. The intention was to have a stealthy color that was a bit more unique than a standard shade but certainly can’t be everyone’s favourite.

But at least we’re not making it in electric yellow like some of the earlier prototypes:

Anyways, I think you’ll be pleased with it, but if you don’t end up liking it then it should be easy to sell because our production run is already over half sold out and is on track to be fully sold out long before the tents arrive. So we won’t have any tents to sell in April/May. Anyone wanting a tent at that point would have to wait another 8 months for a second production run, or buy second hand, so I think yours would be relative easy to sell at full price assuming it was lightly used. Folks are selling Zpacks tents at 95% of retail price just to avoid a 12 week wait.

[Graham F]

Pantone 16-0110- my new favourite colour! It was the colour that was the clincher for me. I got in very early. Why do so many tent makers use such awful colours. Ta Dan for not going the going the yellow route. I would not have bought one. Hey Dan on a more serious note, I notice some clothes in the swatch samples, can you make me up something to wear when I use your tent? How about some Pantone 16-0110 PJs!

[Ken Thompson]

Love the color. The grey color like TT uses prevents me from buying one.

[Franco Darioli]

“The gray color like TT uses prevents me from buying one”
Every grey we have used ?
(you could send a note to TT and ask for a sample of the current “grey” …)

[Roger Caffin]

Try finding a grey tent (any grey) in a foggy storm.
Not difficult with bright colours.

Cheers

[Ryan Smith]

Pulled the trigger on one. The wait begins!

Ryan

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Pantone 16-0110 sounds like quite the color when you read the description:

Since it’s “timeless”, “unobtrusive” and “stylishly powerful”, it’s not surprising that it’s a top choice among the wedding crowd:

Graham: Perhaps you can connect with these ladies and get one of their second hand bridesmaid dresses for your tent matching PJs?

[Graham F]

Bingo, Bango, Bongo!

I’m on it Dan!  That cloth looks like excellent PJs material!!   It has to be ultralight!!!

A wedding colour?  I would never have thought it?  Maybe an untapped market ?

You don’t have a contact email for any of those lasses by any chance?

Would they post to Australia do you think?

 

[rmeurant]

I’m not into garish decoration, and view with distaste screen-printed flies, not to mention mozzies; but I have long thought there is a good case for the user to use permanent markers to pattern a (cuben) tent fly over a sustained period of time in the manner in which traditional architecture (or traditional tattoos) articulate form. In the case of a global nomad, that decoration could be meaningful, and allude to significant events and experiences in the indidual’s voyage e.g. the pure form of mids could be articulated by border decoration near the bottom edge, and at/around the apex in the manner of the capstone of Egyptian pyramids.

Which could also be tied in with the notion of the traditional dwelling  symbolizing and representing the cosmos. So the perimeter of the mid might allude to the zodiac; the apex to the Sun; the overall skin to the celestial sphere of stars; the floor to the earth – or the sea, or perhaps Milky Way.

Using permanent markers would add minimal weight. Well-designed traditional artefacts manage to integrate such symbolism and aesthetic refinement into their overall form and local detail; I’m thinking of Polynesian proas and the like, where for example the lashing of structural elements to one another can be both highly functional, and a work of art.

[rmeurant]

Decoration is a fundamental part of the human psyche, humanizing and making meaningful the artefacts that sustain our lives.

[Franco Darioli]

Those decorations would make for a good stealth tent at a Tibetan festival.

[Ken Thompson]

Congratulations Dan.

[Gumbo]

I’ve read some funny stuff on BPL, but your wedding post, Dan, totally cracked me up – hilarious!

Gotta say that Desert Sage is growing on me :-)

[rmeurant]

Franco makes a good point – I wondered at the time what bothered me about the third photo, but later realized it was the rigid rectilinear equally-spaced layout, which is most unTibetan in nature, which is rather usually heavily constrained by terrain, and rather mediaeval in nature. Maybe this (arrangement in the photo) was more of a Chinese propaganda effort… But traditional Tibetan art and architecture has this wonderful humane “feel good” quality about it, and strong spirituality.

I get something similar from the Shinto temples and shrines I visit or chance upon in Kyushu – magical. Night before last:

[Ben H.]

This reminds me of a commercial from the 1980’s for Chevy (or some other dealer) where they are walking around the street with a camera and ask a random person, “what is your favorite color?” The guy immediately responds, “medium quasar blue metallic.”

“Hey, honey, what color should we use for our wedding?”

“I like Pantone 16-0110.”

“Really? I’m more of a 18-4214 type person.”

[Author]

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