Breaking Down the 2024 OEX Ultralight Tent & Tarp: What's Different? Bobcat 1 Tent & Feral Tarp

the oex Bobcat 1's got a little bit of cult status in the wild camping community and today we're going to be taking a look at the brand new Bobcat ultral light how it differs from the original Bobcat as well as how it sets up with the brand new feral ultr light tarp right so I'll start off with weight and pack size so the original Bobcat weighs in at 1.9 kilos and it's quite a bit larger in size than the ultral light version the ultral light Bobcat is 958 G so under a kilo and if you separate the poles from the bag you can actually squash things down a little bit further that's what it's like on the original Bobcat the ultra light one that goes down even smaller with a s nylon material so one of the reasons that the Bobcat has been so popular is the price the retail price is £225 but you can very often find it on offer like it is now now for $79.99 which makes it really good value for money and as you can imagine being lighter weight and using better quality materials this is going to be a little bit more expensive um I think the retail on this is going to be around £350 with an offer price of around £175 but not sure if that's set in stone yet so I get them both pitched and then we can have a look what some of the differences are so both tents pitch pretty similar they're a single pole design and you do have to Peg them out to get the the main structure up better get shift on starting to rain I've come prepared quite easy to pitch this one pole metal eyelet and just pop it up these can be a little bit tight though there we go the pegs on the standard Bobcat nothing special just the standard Shepherd hooks let's get it pegged out the webbing tie are pretty thick and strong might as well guy it out as well although that wind's finally died down so on the original Bobcat the inner clipse in with these little hooks into the corner of the tent I find that these pop out when you pack the tent away there's the first one done holes on this one look a tiny bit thinner actually actually I can't see out in it oh those pegs are a lot better so instead of those little hooks to clip the inner in the ultral light's got proper Clips on it different type of pole sleeve though although the eyelet is very similar and the sleeve on this one is a solid seal nylon where on the original looks like there's some reinforcement in there but it's a mesh with a reinforced get the guy lines out as well noticed already there's quite a bit more stretch in the S nylon so you can get it bit more Tau the clip system so much better on the ultral light they should implement this on the regular Bobcat as well right so that is both tents up what do you think of the colors do you prefer the green to blend in more with the environment I do like the blue but yeah if you want to be stealthy the green is better I'm not sure if they're going to be making these in different colors I doubt it I've seen some of the others in the ult light range and they're all that nice blue right just from the outside noticed a few things that are different straight away so the shelf or little porch area is larger on the original hcat quite a bit more material which will give you a little more shelter what have thought from the elements on the new ultr light quite a bit smaller actually um will'll open the door in a second to see if it does actually cover the inner I've already mentioned the pole sleeves are different but there is two guy out points here and that is quite high up on the tent one from either side so that gives the tent a lot of extra rigidity when it comes to the wind so it stops the tent from flapping side to side so that's going to make the original Bobcat probably more suitable If you're sort of person that wants to go camping and really exposed windy areas so the ultral light has just got one tie out point on the side so although it's still pretty sturdy there is more Flex however I'm assuming you could if you want double up on the guidelines and add one out either side I think ox have done everything that they can to give you a really ultra light 10 under a kilo it looks like it is the same internal size however the ultral light seems to be little bit further out here the original Bobcat it did suffer a little bit from the inner touching the outer fly there's definitely a lot more clearance here on the ultral light version so I think that they've sorted out that little issue the pegging out points on the original are webbing probably about 20 mm the ultral light has got adjustable little line locks very nice so the guidelines themselves are um a lighter material so I don't know if this is Dina they've also got line locks on them mini line locks they are the original Bobcat has got slightly thicker lines not much in it but these ring kind of locks I don't actually mind those ring ones find that they they lock on pretty good all of the tieout points on the original are heftier this is a more robust bit of kit but it weighs twice as much you're going to expect that on the ultral light they are thinner so it's not made for extreme conditions or anything like that this is if you want to go fast and light maybe you're doing a long distance Trail you're going to be camping in less exposed areas so it doesn't S on the go Outdoors website but this is some kind of it is polyurethane and it's probably around 30 40 Dena which makes it quite a bulky T but it has got a hydrostatic head of 5,000 millim and the ultral light is a very thin lightweight 10 Dena they call it an Enlighten Sil nylon this a silicon coat both sides so it will require seam sealing before you start panicking let me explain a little bit so when this tent is manufactured they use an air cooled needle which means that the stitching holes don't get extra large and they use a an expandable thread so when the thread gets wet it expands and it fills the hole so it's pretty similar to the way that some of the high-end tents like hillberg are actually manufactured however on the hill bgs they sort of double overlap the seams so it gives it that little bit of extra protection and you know no Stitch is actually 100% waterproof so you can still get leaks in your high-end tents the hydrostatic head on this tent is 1500 mm so I've got a video coming out soon where I'm actually going to seam seal a couple of these tents show you just how easy it is and explain why when it comes to seam sealing that most companies actually let you do it yourself and as I said it's not a big deal and I will show you how to do it in a future video right let's take a look inside them so both of these tents are very similar zip either side then there's a pocket in here where you can store the door so the original Bobcat has got sewn into the inner like a little ground sheet area at the front as well which comes in really handy keeping your kit off the ground as you can see it's mainly a solid inner with a little bit of mesh at the top probably about you know a third of the inner and just enough room inside for one person little pocket there so you can see there where on the the ultral light one this is actually connected to the fly and you can see it here look it's touching the outer but this porch once that's inside it covers your inner really well onto the ultral light so these little velcro Tabs are a bit smaller the zip moves easier there's no pocket on here there must be something up there to tie it off I'm hoping what the deliberate mistake there's little Loops here so you open the door from one side there we go and just roll this up yeah there's little to on there but it is adjustable which is good so you can actually tighten it up have another quick look at this one you can see how loose that is there the ultral light looks much more Tor I do like what they've done with that so the zip I've got tie up points there for the for the inner let's unzip it as you can see it's well if you push hard enough it's probably about inch inch and a half clearance there it's tied onto the fly sheet there so the ground sheet is actually tape seam so that must be pu coated on the inside it is a little bit heavier Dena not exactly sure what it is there's one bigger pocket there just seems much brighter and more appealing to being there's no little um ground sheet area so you're going to have to take a little bit of something if you want to keep your gear off the wet ground unless they're going to do a footprint for it I don't know there is definitely a lot more mesh on this so you can see this mesh pretty much to you know a foot off the ground there same all the way around so yeah I think that's for for finer weather obviously but it helps keep the weight down so which one are you liking so far the original Bobcat has got some sort of cult status I wonder if this is going to prove to be as popular right another cool bit of gear this is the brand new feral ultra light tarp so this has been made to fit pretty much all of the Oe extens is coming out so it will fit the ultral light it will fit the original Bobcat it'll also fit other tents such as the Bandicoot and the the fox Ranger tents I do like these dry bag style stuff sacks that they use so the feral top is 420 G which sounds quite heavy for a top but it comes with a pole so if you're using trekking poles you can save weight on the poles and pegs as well let's take a look at the pole so yeah it's like a little tiny Basher pole that's cool so it's got this little rubber bit on the the end stop it sinking into the ground and then you've got a decent size um some sort of ring on there to fit on the end of the top stop it pushing through the grommet so all of the ultral light range also come with a repair kit which has got pole sleeve seam sealer a brush and some patches and things like that as well so because it's an ultra light tarp I'm going to set it up on the ultra light tent but you can use it on all the standard tents as well so I haven't used this TP before so it might take a little bit of adjustment fortunately it's not really windy it's quite a big tarp actually so you could probably just use this on its own going to get the back guide out first again this has got those ultral light dyema guidelines don't know how much overhang I want not a lot and we get the front pole in wrong way it's always the same when there's two ways in you always get it wrong don't you USB thing USB original I always get it wrong plenty of tie out points anyway you reckon to this so far I think this is going to be very popular tarp it's all the ra now T and tarp isn't it let's go belts and races shall we get them all out obviously this will be much more difficult to get up if it was really windy might not even bother but you never know few adjustments that's first time that as well that's actually it's not going anywhere you could use your trekking pole like I said move that one out to the side a bit there we go that's really good that let me straighten that pole up look at the amount of room you've got yeah this is a 15 Dena Sil nylon and this has got a 3,000 mm hydrostatic head I can't believe how much room you've got there so I can actually lie down on here this is brilliant you've got Acres of space for cooking store extra gear yeah I like that that's how the top of the pole fits same story again if you want this 100% waterproof a quick seam seal on here's going to do the job they work really well together don't they yeah I like that so there's not huge amounts of reinforcement there so you know for everybody that wants to go testing their tent in storm whatever it is this week don't bother with this that is not what it's designed for it's designed for fast light this gives you loads of extra space really good looking as well isn't it if a tent and top can be good looking oex and Juro pole it looks little bit thicker than the temp poles let me know what you think so obviously I've not had chance to test it in the field yet but first impressions I'm liking that little setup I just thought it'd be nice to show the differences between the ultr light one and the original Bobcat that is so popular so all of the ultral light range should be hit in the stores at the end of April so keep your eyes peeled so make sure to subscribe if you want to see me seam sealing this and have a look at one of the other ultr light tents from Ox make sure to let me know in the comments what your early thoughts are but that's it for this one thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Paul Messner

Views: 45,864

Keywords: camping, backpacking, Paul messner, wild camping, tent, outdoors, hiking, uk wild camping

Id: KmhYk5LmYLc

Length: 18min 53sec (1133 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024