Copper Spur UL2 Bikepack

I use a Big Agnes Copper Spur 2 person bikepacking tent. They make a regular copper spur also that is essentially the same tent with longer poles. It's big enough for 1 person for car camping, and light enough to bring for 1 person bikepacking.

Sure. Take, for example, the Copper Spur compared with the Nemo Hornet. https://www.nemoequipment.com/products/hornet-osmo?variant=42025834676397 https://www.bigagnes.com/collections/copper-spur-ul-series/products/copper-spur-ul-two As you can see, the fly doors on the BA can be propped up with trekking poles, creating a cute “porch” configuration. To get a robust porch out of this you need to guy out the poles. The problem with this design is that it requires two zippers to function: one zipper must run along the corner pole and another zipper must run down the middle of the fly. To get in and out of the tent or prop open the fly door, you really need to zip-up both of these zippers. The fly door then rolls up. You can get away with just the middle zipper, but you end up blocking much of the inner fly door. Nemo’s design features only a single zipper running down the center of the fly. Once that zipper is up the door rolls up into the corner. This difference may seem innocuous at first, but the corner fly zipper on the BA can be a pain, particularly in soaking wet conditions when a very taught fly is required. If your fly is pitched “crooked” in any way, it will cause part of the fly zipper to wrap around the corner pole. This can make the fly door a hassle to zip/unzip unless you’ve really got a “perfect pitch.” This isn’t a huge deal, but the porch configuration is gimmicky and doesn’t need to exist on the tent in the first place. Personally, I opted for the BA Copper Spur anyway, specifically the Bikepack version. I like that the Copper Spur’s mesh started higher up on the tent wall, giving some privacy without the fly, nice when other backpackers are around. I also like how the Bikepack poles collapse to 12”, which helps weight distribution a lot by allowing me to pack the poles horizontally anywhere inside my pack. We are in very different parts of the country; all of my sleeping is done in dense forest below treeline.

I love my Big Agnes Copper Spur 2-Person Bikepacking tent. It’s freestanding which is a big deal for me, fits great between the bars because of the shortened poles, and is the perfect size to comfortably store all my gear in the tent with me. Sets up really quick, and you don’t have to know origami to get it back in the bag. Day-to-day on a trip I just stuff it back in and it’s fine. The 2-person retails for just above your price range, but it’s always on sale somewhere.

I have the big Agnes copper spur bikepack 2 and it’s probably the best all around tent out there. There are lighter options out there, but they have longer pole segments and generally make compromises like only 1 door or smaller vestibules. It’s kind of pricey, but I’ve spent a lot of nights in mine and so far I have no complaints. It’s very well thought out and well constructed

Copper Spur 2-person, bikepacking edition (with the shorter poles). Great tent. I picked mine up during COVID at a 20% off season REI sale. They were out of stock and I waited almost 3 months for it, but IMO, worth the wait. Disadvantage - it's not going to make the $200 price point. You could look to use your 20% off REI coupon, although that would still make it more than the $200 price point, but 20% is 20%. You could also post you're looking to buy one used. Someone may want to sell one if they aren't using it.