Drop + Dan Durston X-Mid 1P Tent Discussions | Drop

Jul 24, 2018

Lherm1) At the extreme maximum you could use 14 stakes. These would be the four corners, two peak guylines, a stake on both sides of both doors (overkill), and then there are four more guyouts around the base of the shelter. So there are lots of stake points around the base. I didn't include stake points at the midpoint of the shelter because it's not a 4 season shelter and because I don't think these are that helpful. They can easily be mis-used to distort the shelters shape and hurt more than help. People overtighten these and get a weird pitch. You don't want to be pulling panels out in places where the shape isn't designed for that. If you do, it'll pull in somewhere else. I see this almost everytime I see someone using a Zpacks shelters where the user overtightens the mid-panel guyouts and that pulls the ridgeline down.

For a normal pitch (90% of the time). I use stakes at the four corners plus 1 more at the main door I'll be using (5 total). In stormy conditions I'd add the peak guyouts (7 stakes total) and then if conditions were truly serious, I would add four more stakes around the base of the shelter at the provided loops and one at the other door (12 stakes total). The main function of more stakes around the bottom perimeter would be to spread the load over more stakes so individual stakes are less likely to pull out. 2) Yes. I've provided about 6" of cord at each of the four corners. If you pitch it with this cord extended, the tent will lift off the ground a few inches. Or vice versa - pitch it with the cord as short as possible and it will pitch extremely close to the ground. Pitching it with the cord extended to lift up the fly would also lift up the inner, except with the adjustability built in to the connection of the inner at the peaks (adjustable buckles on grosgrain) you can just loosen the inner at the peaks to prevent it from being pulled higher as the fly is raised. So these factors are designed to work in tandem and you should be able to get a properly tensioned inner across the range of fly heights that are possible with the stock corner cords. If you want to pitch the tent really high (e.g. 6+ inches), you would need to extend the cord at the corners further (add some cord) and then you'd also want to extend the connection of the inner at the peaks so it doesn't lift off the ground as the fly is raised up. I didn't provide this much cord partly to save weight and partly because I didn't want less experienced users to accidentally get a bizarre pitch. For example, if I provided longer lines a new user might pitch one corner extended out 12" but the other corners hardly extended at all, which would give the tent a weird tilt.
I should also mention that there are other options to boost ventilation. Since the fly has a few inches of overhang, you can sleep with the doors entirely open in light rains. In moderate rains you could unzip the door halfway and roll it up. Like this, you'd have even more fly overhang (perhaps a foot) so this works well even in decent rains. In heavy rains I usually give up on stopping condensation because everything is so humid that it's going to happen, but certainly you can lift the shelter a bit and use the vents to mitigate this. Since the X-Mid is a double wall, has no sag fabric, and steep enough walls that condensation will usually run down the walls rather than drip, you should be well protected even if excessive condensation occurs. The X-Mid is designed to vent as well as possible, but also to handle condensation well should it occur, because sometimes it's inevitable. 3) Yes it has a ripstop. Below is one photo. You can see more high resolutional/high zoom pictures at the bottom of this page: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/massdrop-announces-a-dan-durston-tent-2-people-2-hiking-poles-29-oz-199/#comments

4) I expect that Massdrop has some type of goal or minimum numbers to break even on the project, but I'm not sure what they are. My role has exclusively been to design the product and they are handling all the business type stuff. So I think they are happy with the interest in the product but I haven't directly asked. 134 tents and counting seems pretty good. My fears were that only a handful would be sold, so that has been alleviated. Perhaps Massdrop will order more than are pre-ordered so it can be offered as in stock item next year (like their Pine down blanket) but I don't know what their plans are. From my perspective, the motivation for this project is that I want tents to be better - I'm a gear geek - so this is my effort to build the ultimate tent. I want people (and me) to be using more functional gear that makes backpacking better. The royalities I get from this are small and trivial compared to my day job (and terrible on a $/hr basis), so success for me would be seeing the general ultralight community excited about the product, enjoying using it and expecting more from tents. If this tent causes people to look at other tents differently and ask "why is that so complex?", "do you need that many seams?", and "why the nine sided shape?" then I'd be happy with that. As to a second run, I honestly have no idea what Massdrop is thinking. If they do order more tents then pre-orders then there could be some available next year. Otherwise there would be a long lead time again. Massdrop will likely order however many tents they decide is prudent, and if a future batch happens it would likely be a 2P tent next. Thanks for the interest in the product and the well educated questions.

Jul 24, 2018

Lherm

Jul 24, 2018

dandurstonThank you Dan for all the work you put into this tent and for your thorough replies to everyone on this forum.

Jul 24, 2018

Jul 29, 2018

dandurstonI would be first in line for a 2P

Jul 29, 2018

Jul 29, 2018

StringBenderI'll see what I can do. I'd love to make one.

Jul 29, 2018

Jul 29, 2018

dandurstonLooks like the 1P is a hit approaching 175 in the drop with a few days to go. A 2P would be even more successful IMO. Might as well get 'er on the books! ;)

Jul 29, 2018

Jul 30, 2018

StringBenderI don't have any good data, but I think 2P tents outsell 1P tents about 2:1, so yeah I think it would be popular. It'd be interesting to do a Massdrop poll and compare interest in various versions of the X-Mid (single wall vs double wall, sil/PU poly vs DCF, 1P vs 2P). Roughly the specs would be: 1P, Singlewall, Silpoly - $175, 24oz 1P, Singlewall, DCF - $450, 16oz 1P, Doublewall, Silpoly - $200, 28oz 1P, Doublewall, DCF - $475, 18oz 2P, Singlewall, Silpoly - $220, 32oz 2P, Singlewall, DCF - $499, 20oz 2P, Doublewall, Silpoly - $250, 38oz 2P, Doublewall, DCF - $525, 24oz

(Edited)

Jul 30, 2018

Jul 30, 2018

dandurston2P doublewall DCF - yes please!

Jul 30, 2018

Aug 12, 2018

dandurstonFurther thought: One of the two DCF 2-ups might make the best sense as a next Massdrop offering IMO. Why?
A) The current DCF tent designs and offerings are limited and an X design would trump them all. There are hoards of lightweight silpoly 2-up offerings and the inexpensive Chinese knockoffs of a few popular designs are starting to show decent quality and gaining traction from some buyers. I am not endorsing, just stating fact.
B) There are probably a good number of people who joined the 1-up drop that would be hugely disappointed if a 2-up silpoly (for a couple extra shillings) where to shirttail the tent they just bought whereas a 2-up DCF being substantially higher in price would more significantly differentiate the interested buyers.
C) This is an ultralight community after all - let's get there.
Oh and BTW, please make it a doublewall! :)

Aug 12, 2018

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Aug 13, 2018

StringBenderThanks for the thoughts SB. Appreciated.
Most likely a 2P silpoly will be next mostly because that's the easiest one to do and thus can arrive the soonest. We already have an excellent manufacturer in place, details refined and the materials figured out, so it would mostly be changing the dimensions which isn't that hard to do. Conversely, working with DCF is really hard and changes things like reinforcements, plus we'd need to find a manufacturer who has the experience to do an excellent job. And I'd want to re-work every aspect of the design to be as light as possible (less beefy, perhaps 10% smaller etc). So this is also on the go, but likely further from arriving.
I don't think 1P buyers would be upset if a 2P were to be released for a couple reasons. First, the 2P would arrive in perhaps six months later (fall 2019), which really means you wouldn't be hiking with the 2P until 2020 compared with 2019. Second, I was probably optimistic in my previous post that estimated 33oz for the 2P. The 2P will be quite a bit larger than the 28oz 1P, so it would likely be 35-36 oz like the TT Saddle. So substantially larger and heavier than the 1P, and thus serve a pretty different purpose. It's not like a 1+ shelter for an extra 2oz where a lot of 1P buyers might have preferred it. It'll be a true 2P shelter for all the folks that like the X design but normally hike with a partner.
I hear you on the Chinese knockoffs. Two things a 2P X-Mid would have going for it though it is that it is a unique and arguably superior design than what is available as a knock-off, and the price is competitive so it's not like you'd save a ton of money buying a knock-off (whereas you would if you were considering a $400 tent). Basically, the X-mid provides an innovative design, high end materials and quality manufacturing for a modest price, which I think for most folks is an attractive way to go compared to buying a knockoff (copy design, lower end materials, okay construction for a really low price) or some of the artisan built shelters that offer good designs and materials but at 2x the X-Mid price.
But anyways, I'm very interested in doing DCF versions in the near future. I'd like to do them as singlewalls for three reasons. First, I just want to create an amazingly light tent. Secondly, folks interested in extremely light gear are more willing to put up with the limitations of a single wall than more mainstream buyers so the single wall market seems larger, and thirdly, the popular DCF shelters today are singlewalls and I'd like to join that niche to show how much better these products can be. In the words of Henry Shires: "I looked at the DCF products on the market....and some of them are frankly just awful from a design perspective." I feel that way too. Folks are buying pretty poorly designed and constructed DCF tents, and they seem to be okay with it for some unknown reason. I want folks to expect better. I'm going to work on some details of the design for a DCF 1P this week. I've got some ideas brewing for shaving some weight. Mostly it would be less bomber (e.g. #3 fly zippers instead of #5) but I have a few crazy ideas that might work to save weight.

Aug 13, 2018

Aug 13, 2018

dandurstonAll good points. I’m in for your first DCF 2P. Looking forward to your innovative design(s).

Aug 13, 2018

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Aug 27, 2018

dandurstonI have run across 2 threads recently encouraging both HL and ZP to look at and reference your design and consider making a 1P and 2P DCF version. I am sure you are probably aware of more. Clearly, you have a lot of people's attention. I guess that is good news/bad news. I am hoping that you will be the price leader if not first to market. There is that economy of scale and experience with DCF thing that might be a problem. Maybe you can work with one or the other and work out a signature model(s). Just thinking out loud……….

Aug 27, 2018

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