MSR Hubba Hubba 2 pole issues

[Bill in Roswell]

I perused the Hubba Hubba 2 for a general purpose 2 person lightweight tent. I read the reciew on Sectionhiker as Philip is a straight shooter, tells it like he sees it. He liked the tent but mentioned pole durabilty of the Easton Syclones. I looked at REI customer reviews and reports of pole splintering. I went to a local REI – there were 3 Hubbas in the Garage Sale area, all with splintering or broken piles. MSR will replace the orig poles with better revised versions, but many customers don’t know that or they just get a reliable Copper Spur or Dragonfly. Yet on my Google news feeds about a dozen reviews popped up from baxkpackers and bike packers. They all lauded the new Hubba for its benefits. Not a single one mentioned the pole durability issues. To me, such lack of integrity is appalling. Ive known some of those reviewers recieve free gear for the review. I won’t list the sites due to potential conflicts, but many of you are familiar. Most frustrating is the reviewers don’t provide a feedback form or email address. I wish there were some way to call out industry pocket reviewers. Caveat imptor.

[Bill Budney]

Yeah, that’s a common issue with professional reviewers in general. Obviously there are a few exceptions, such as BPL reviews. I haven’t found a reviewer yet who makes the same decisions I would, so I take in the information and come to my own conclusions.

Also, many “reviews” are unboxing or first-look sort of thing, which is limited in usefulness.

When I’m trying to research something I look at as many reviews as I can find, and try to find points of agreement and disagreement.

I looked at a lot of reviews for the Hubba Hubba; both written and video. A few were long term reviews. I don’t recall anyone mentioning broken poles, which makes me wonder how often it happens. Could there be a component of user error involved?

Most seem to think it is a more-sturdy-than-average 3+ season tent.

[jscott]

“Could there be a component of user error involved?”

Yes. and folks who never understood set up will go on line and complain the loudest. that said, I’ve never used this tent.

[bradmacmt]

I have the 1P model, but have only set it up once in the yard. No problem there, but I certainly wouldn’t go writing an online review about it! I don’t doubt there were some problems with the poles, but I haven’t seen any issue with them – yet. Regardless, at first blush I think it’s a very nice tent. My intended use is for colder, late season weather.

[Bill in Roswell]

There are a number of user reviews noting pole splinters and broken poles. They were not user error. MSR admitted a batch of poles was bad and offered replacements, but users have to contact MSR to get them. If you want to find a great deal on a Hubba, check REI garage sale, view tag for pole issue or broken poles, get the huge discount, then contact MSR for new poles. The poles are a carbon-fiber glass composite, thus the splinters. Apparently the epoxy coating on a batch was not thick enough, but subsequent production was fine.

[Bill in Roswell]

Bill B, I do the same. But most users do little research if any.

[David D]

The Hubba Hubba is the Honda Accord of tents up here, the most common model I see in the wild.

I came across more than a few reviews of broken carbon fiber poles with it, one poor father had to take his daughter to emerge from a serious injury.  The definition of stupid light.

It also has a short floor, a common way the tent manufacturer’s cheat.  My son bought a Hornet and used it to backpack the BC Rockies for 2 months and was disappointed to find out he didn’t read the fine print and it wasn’t sized for grown ups.

[Sam Farrington]

When Easton began selling the composite flexible tent pole, it was acknowledged that they were not as strong as their then new carbon poles, which were also lighter.  This thread appears to confirm that.  So, wear a gas mask and make some from Easton’s heavier carbon weight but lighter than alloy carbon pole sections. Or ask Tent Pole Tech to make a set for your tent.   The OP hasn’t raised other issues about the current Hubbas, so will leave it at that.

As I’ve posted before about carbon pole tests, break tests of Gold Tip multi-layered  Expedition Hunter carbon arrow shafts were the strongest, under 1 gram per running inch (GPI), competitive in strength with the heavier Easton Nano .344 diameter alloy poles.  Unfortunately, the Easton carbon tent poles came out later, well after my tests were over with.  The Easton carbon pole sections came out in two weights, but the stronger weight was 30% heavier than the Gold Tip shafts mentioned above.  They are available from Quest Outfitters.  Easton warned on a BPL thread not to use arrow shafts for poles, but with no specifics.  However, I’ve used the Gold Tips, not to mention some Victory shafts, discussed on BPL by Roger Caffin, that came in second to the Gold Tips in my tests.  Granted, there are some tricky aspects of making poles from arrow shafts, so would recommend following Easton’s advice.  For example, how to choose the right ‘spine’ from the archery suppliers, not to mention the best price. But will say that the Gold Tips have lasted several tents without breaks; so much that I went to carrying a short repair sleeve (never needed) instead of a full pole section to use in case of breaks.   But be careful of using carbon shafts, even from tent pole makers, as a lot of them were much weaker in my tests, and reports of breaks were posted on BPL.

[Roger Caffin]

I think there is a serious problem with Easton’s hybrid poles – a blend of thin aluminium core with a thin layer of carbon fibre wrapped around the core. They may be fine in the lab, but the guys designing them and marketing them were not engineers. The aluminium has a high coefficient of thermal expansion, while the CF stuff is much lower. (Or is it ‘much higher? I forget, but it does not matter here.)

Cycle the pole between your nice warm house and the cold snow a few times and the difference in thermal expansion will cause the bond between the aluminium and the carbon fibre to fail, usually in a progressive manner. You now have a rather weak aluminium tube and a rather weak CF tube: a recipe for failure when they bend or flex.

Cheers

[David D]

Sam, do you see potentially dangerous splinters thrown when CF poles break?  I’ve read user reviews on line complaining about this, and not just the link.   I’ve only seen carbon fiber fail in motorcycle applications, admittedly well beyond loads here, but splinters can be thrown there depending on construction.

[Roger Caffin]

I have seen a few broken CF poles (user errors), and there were no significant splinters.

Now that is with quality 2D wrapped CF poles. If you have cheap pultruded poles the results will be different. There are some cheap pultruded glass fibre poles masquerading as CF on the market: they might splinter a bit.

Cheers

[Bill in Roswell]

Sam, thanks for the detailed info. Growing up in the Deep South, a number of friends were bow hunters and started making their own arrows for specific game (deer, black bear, turkey). Of course there is no lateral stress of note on arrow shafts, but issues like fiber splinters are noted.

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