Mountain Laurel Designs - SoloMid

Depends on what you are looking for in terms of durability. To start with, to clarify, there is really nothing different between the camping of bike touring/bike packing and long distance hiking, thru-hiking, etc, in terms of wear and tear on a tent, unless for some reason you think you need to get your bike in your tent (don't). So when learning and looking for more information, I'd recommend spending time on forums that are more hiking specific as there is more information out there (eg the Reddit UL, or even better, Backpackinglight) With ultralight tents, Silnylon and Silpoly are more durable long term than DCF (formerly Cuben Fibre) fabrics. DCF will come out lighter for the same tent (sometimes you'll see two versions, one in either Silnylon or Silpoly, the other DCF), but it will be up to twice as expensive. Useful for saving maybe up to a few more ounces perhaps but you might sacrifice at least half the life expectancy. Having said that it sounds like most people get a "thru-hike" out of a DCF shelter (ie about 6 months of use), but usually they are putting on lots of patches to hold it together. I've never owned a DCF shelter nor thru-hiked or cycletoured with one myself, and for future long distance cycle touring trips I'll almost definitely be sticking to silpoly. I have some stuff sacks in DCF, but that's more incidental than anything (bought some years ago in different weights to try out, didn't use that much). To make DCF start to last nearly as long as a very light Silnylon, you have to increase its thread density, increasing its weight to basically the same as the woven Silnylon or Silpoly fabric, at which point you basically are just paying money for no real benefit. Yes it will be super strong, but that's not the same as Abrasion durability which is the concern here (the silnylon and polys are strong enough for the task). If you have a modern (recent years) silnylon or Silpoly shelter made by an established UL manufacturer you shouldn't have any material problems for a very, very long time. Silnylons in the last few years, and indeed Silpoly in the last couple or so, have come a long way vs the Silnylons of the 2000-2010 era and the first runs of UL weight Silpoly fabrics that came out. UL shelter manufacturers have also learnt a lot recently about how to choose, spec, the fabrics and design their shelters around Silpoly too. Its more likely that you'll have problems with either poles (mainly arch poles, straight poles eg for Mid type or tarp shelters are far more durable), or zips. Minimising both of those problems and you'll be fine. #3 zips are lighter than #5, but #5 are far stronger. Learn about zip care. Carry spare pole segments if you have an arch pole (repair sleeves won't always cut it for a bad break on a segment, especially a break at the tip). The elastic inside arch poles sometimes perishes; this can be replaced if it happens, but it takes a long time and I suspect is more a factor of being stored away for a couple of decades, and/or very rough treatment over and over again by the person using the poles. For what its worth, if I was heading out on a long tour again this year (ie a year or more, multiple countries and/or continents) I'd probably get an MLD Cricket in Silpoly, the Inner with Silnylon/poly floor (whatever Ron is currently making them in, I trust his judgement), and a collapsible (not expandable) Carbon Fibre pole for it. I'd probably ask him to do the zip on the inner as a T-zip (they used to do this) as I think thats a better design for keeping mosquitos out with the way I use similar layout shelters, and have the zip done with separate vertical and horizontal segments. Straight zips are easier to have replaced somewhere by a local seamstress than curved ones. If I was definitely spending lots of time in snow-like conditions, above the arctic circle outside summer, Tibet plateau in Winter, etc (probably not as one can usually plan a tour to avoid such scenarios....) then rather than the Cricket I'd get the Solomid for a bit more protection, making sure its a #5 zipper. Same Inner.

Oh sorry, I meant the duplex variant (as in, a 2P) my partner and I were using in 2024, not the ZPacks product; too much weight for one person by themselves. Thanks, I'll give the Solomid XL a look. That one's huge!

The Duplex is too heavy? It’s much lighter than any other tent you or anyone else has mentioned in the thread. Anyhow, for your use case, I would recommend a pyramid-style shelter - MLD being the best. Pegging the shelter is essential, free-standing or not. If you learn the big-rock/little rock method you will be able to pitch any shelter anywhere.