*THE RTT Owners Thread (With BS)*

well, that's quite a view.....out the tent I mean...

 

the quote in your sig doesn't work well with that picture

 

That's @Trident904 for you. Ask him about his story in Key West during Fantasy Fest

 

haha I'm not so sure I want to do that!

 

Son of a... Dammit Frank, you were there too.

 

nope! never been to fantasy fest

 

That bearded lady at the drag show looked so familiar though.

 

wtf, now you are confirming that night in Key West! the truth comes out

 

Tequila...

 

Nice Mount!
How's the rack?

 

hard to figure out if you're addressing the first or second picture here...

 

my only thought was the second picture, since we can clearly see the fart knocker is on point

 

FART KNOCKER ON POINT

 

All right, so my Big Bear camping trip fell through, but a friend of a friend managed to snag a last minute cancellation spot at South Carlsbad State Beach. Not much of a campground, really, right next to a major road, but only 20 minutes drive from my house and next to the ocean. Plus weekends there are booked year and a half in advance, so it was all right. And it was nice to get out of the house and do outside drinking haha.

In addition to my first impressions with the tent that I posted the day I received it, I have a few more complaints.

1. Locking latches are complete garbage and don't even align right, without having to move the top of the tent left and right. The little locking wire on one of them broke before I even put the tent on top of the truck. CVT is aware of the issue and searching for different solutions, according to the guy I spoke to on the phone. I am going to try to find something on my own, I just want the holes to align, so I don't have to drill more. Something like James Baroud or Yeti cooler rubber straps are much more solid. Same goes to the buckle straps. That serve as an additional security to keep the tent shut. They are cheap and not very well thought through. Thankfully they put 4 of them (one on each corner), so the broken latch is not a showstopper.

2. I don't know who the fuck thought it was a good idea to attach the mounting rails in a way that the bolt and the nut protrude 1/2" through the floor of the tent every 8" thought the entire length of both rails. Tee and barrel nuts are a thing and have been around for-fucking-ever. High density foam pad kinda compensates for it and you don't really feel these protruding motherfuckers when you sleep on your back, but I sleep on my side and it felt like a mid-eval torture device. I'll call CVT about that and will be looking in into a way to deal with it.... I am thinking an anti-condensation mat from one of the soft tents cut to size will help by raising the mattress, and perhaps an additional foam pad on top, because GF complained that the current one is too firm for her. We had 2 in the Mt. Shasta and those are softer.

3. Ladder hooks over the side of the tent and the hook part is way big. I hit my knee on that thing pretty damn hard in my sleep. Speaking of the ladder, the seams on the bag it came in already coming apart on both sides. Wtf.

4. I don't think the floor of the tent is reinforced or rigid enough. I have no experience with hard shell RTTs as this is my first one, but all edges of the floor seem to sag a bit. The mounting rails stick out of the bottom of shelf about 3/8"-1/4" and sit on top of the rack, yet the sides also end up resting on the rack, rubbing on the crossbars and making squeaking noise. I put a piece of the pool noodle between cross-bars and the shell and it got completely flattened. Some kind of honeycomb structure, would definitely be beneficial for this tent.

I had hell of a time mounting this thing on my PrInSu shell rack, because it sat 1/2" lower than the cab rack. For some reason it never crossed my mind to just mount the tent on the cab rack vs. shell rack, so right now I have 1" risers between the rack mounts and cross-bars and then I have removed couple of cross-bars in the middle and stacked them together to raise the tent another 1", and the cab rack still touches the front of the tent once in a while, so i have a bunch of pool noodle pieces in there too.

I will be contacting CVT about all these issues, but overall I am pretty satisfied with the tent. Setup and breakdown is super easy and fast, and this is what I was looking for, mainly, because I got stick and tired of running circles around my truck for 20 minutes to setup and breakdown Mt. Shasta. I can also be on my way in less than 3 minutes if I need to make a run to a store or something. Just remove the ladder and close the tent with blankets and pillows inside of it and be on your way.


Oh yeah, masking tape on the top is the "space blanket" I made out shiny of Blue Apron bags to reflect the sun and keep from getting hot, since my genius ass decided to get this tent in black.... I may vinyl wrap the top to make it white or something. Haven't decided yet

 

Thanks for the input...and for working with CVT to pinpoint issues. I'll be keeping my eyes glued.

 

yeah, i am pretty sure all this stuff is early adopter issues that will be ironed out in the future production runs. shit, worse case scenario I will sell this one once they bump the price and buy a new one

 

Good review, glad you're liking it despite the growing pains. Hopefully CVT takes your input and updates future models.

 

So Carlsbad and San Elijo are nice for a quick weekend getaway - but you do have to plan in advance. 1-1/2 years out is incorrect. 6 months in advance is as far as you can go - but you got to be quick and or lucky to grab a weekend day. I'll be at San Elijo for four nights at the end of September. IMO beach/cliff side is worth the extra cost.

Unless you are military, you really don't have other choices for beach front camping in So Cal... Check with Camp Pendleton MWR

I did receive an email from ReserveAmerica this weekend about their new reservation system

Happy camping!