Alloy tent poles - things that go bang in the night

[Low Roller]

Alloy tent poles used in geodesic domes or tunnel tents are in terminal decline after one or two months cycle camping. I say this , not from any technical analysis but from the practical experience of having three poles snap over the years, 2 on one night.


Using a tent as a base camp means it only gets put up and taken down once per holiday. Cycle camping, and especially longer tours mean that the poles get tightly bent and unbent every day.


I was wild camping on a dark and wet April evening in a spookily deserted Municipal campsite in the heart of the Black Mountains, Brittany, France. Owls were hooting. A loud bang made me jump out of my sleeping bag. My heart pounded - they shoot wild campers in France , don’t they? A tent pole had snapped and gone through the flysheet of my one year old Vango Spirit tunnel tent , complete with vestibule. About an hour later exactly the same thing happened. Woke up bedraggled, a wet grey morning - a one hooped tunnel tent with no vestibule and an additional two exits in the flysheet.


Unfortunately the local Decathlon couldn’t help me. They had spare straight poles but not the V shaped proprietary alloy pieces at the apex of the tent. So it was posted home and I had to buy a new tent.


Even my well-used Terra Nova Voyager now causes me some concern: you can see striations - little stress marks along the end of each pole section.


So here is my advice: examine the pole sections very carefully every time you put up your tent, even expensive ones; avoid tents with proprietary apex pole sections and if you can’t avoid them get spare bits before you go on tour.

 

[raleighnut]

Or get the Topeak Bikamper like I did.

 

[Ticktockmy]

Camping at Edale last January, we had just put up our Vaude Hogan, and there was a very load bang, and the cast alloy bracket that the poles fit into just exploded into bits, luckily by doing some bodge work we managed to tie the poles together enough to have a usable tent, happily we did not have any snow that night or we would have had a problem. Vaude replaced the part no questions asked even thought eh tent was 5 years old

 

[Brains]

Do not erect the tent on maximum stress
I always use the outer holes to erect the tent, I have two Terra nova tents plus several North Face, all are the wrong side of 15+ years old, all still work, none have broken poles, all have been heavily used (as in 15-30 nights per year)

 

[Tigerbiten]

I've had a couple of Terra Nova Lazer's and never had any trouble with the poles despite bending them in storms. Each tent must have over 250 days of use.
I used a Wild Country Zephos this year and the pole broke for the first time on day 37. By day 150 the pole had broken at least 5 times, I gave up counting at that point.
The main difference is the Lazer has DAC poles and the Zephos has plain aluminium.
I know which type of poles I'm going for in my next tent.

 

[TheDoctor]

Good lord. Even my cheap Tesco Value dome tent (snip at a fiver) has fibreglass poles...

 

[mmmmartin]

The main difference is the Lazer has DAC poles and the Zephos has plain aluminium.
I know which type of poles I'm going for in my next tent.

Agreed. Terra Nova tents are reassuringly expensive. But immensely strong. Worth the extra cost.

 

[Tim Hall]

Good lord. Even my cheap Tesco Value dome tent (snip at a fiver) has fibreglass poles...

In the hierarchy of materials, I'd put fibre glass poles someway below aluminium (of any flavour). Hastily whittled bits of hazel (left poles at home, oops) come somewhere in between.

 

[compo]

I wont say how old my backpacking tent is but it has straight vertical wooden poles, one at each end.

 

[Blue Hills]

I feel for you lowroller - somewhere on here I think are my misadventures with the Vango spirit 200 (plus in my case).

I gather that DAC poles are the thing to go for - some Decathlon tents use them. I'm sure that they are better thsn the 8.5 mm poles used by so msny Vango tents.

 

[Tim Hall]

So, on this subject, I've got a Vaude Campo and a Vaude Campo Compact, both minus poles. Enquiries with Vaude suggest a new set is over a hundred quid. Ebay and Amazon drew a blank. Can I use DAC poles as a replacement? Suggested suppliers? Can they be cut to length?

 

[mmmmartin]

Yes.
Ebay or Terra Nova
Yes. (But be careful of the joining points, you might end up with one piece of pole six inches long)

 

[andym]

So here is my advice: examine the pole sections very carefully every time you put up your tent, even expensive ones; avoid tents with proprietary apex pole sections and if you can’t avoid them get spare bits before you go on tour.

Good advice.

If you carry ultra lightweight gear then you do need to take into account the possibility that it will break. So carrying a repair sleeve or extra pole sections, and repair tape is a good idea.

My experience:

- my Vaude Power Lizard lasted for about 7 months of continuous use before the pole went. I carried on using it for another month-and-a-half with the repair sleeve.

- my current tent (a Nordisk) is still going strong after 5 months total use. This has DAC poles which do feel more reassuring.

 

[Blue Hills]

In the hierarchy of materials, I'd put fibre glass poles someway below aluminium (of any flavour). Hastily whittled bits of hazel (left poles at home, oops) come somewhere in between.

I know that's the way they are rated Tim but I can't help but wonder if it's really true and the move to supposedly wonderful lightweight aluminium poles was promoted as being more modern, lighter, and allowing small sections (in itself increases failure I think) so that on decamping you can shove the poles up your fundament/pop them in a handy earlobe/specs case or whatever.

I have had significant issues with the Vango Spirit 200 poles after a few days camping in calm calm conditions. And the sharp aluminium shard of the second pole failure cut through the tent/pole sleeve.

Now I got back into camping years ago with a basic Vango dome tent. The poles on that one did eventually start to splinter if not completely break but that was only some months after it facing near galeforce winds (seemed that way to me) on a Barmouth camp site. The wind made the poles bend inwards by an pretty much equivelent degree/angle to the angle they should have bent outwards. I well remember lying in the sleeping bag pushing the poles against the wind. The tent amazingly survived the night. I reckon the poles on my Vango Spirit 200 would have lasted 5 minutes.

Fbreglass poles seem easy to come by and cheap. Though I suppose there may be issues with compatible lengths.

 

[Blue Hills]

So here is my advice:........ avoid tents with proprietary apex pole sections and if you can’t avoid them get spare bits before you go on tour.

Are those what for bizarre reasons are often called "gothic arch"?

They seem very common.

Would I be right in thinking that it is very often dome/geodesic/semi geodesic designs that avoid these?