Van life without the van
CAN YOU ENJOY THE MTB MOTORHOME LIFESTYLE WITHOUT FORKING OUT FOR A CAMPER VAN AND DOING IT UP?
CHRIS TESTS OUT A COST-EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE
You can’t go on social media these days without being exposed to the #vanlife scene. It’s the ultimate aspirational lifestyle generator – buy a clapped-out workman’s van, strip it out and build a versatile, personalised motorhome inside. Then head into a National Park or north of the border and your Instagram will thank you for it. Of course, the mountain bike scene has its own van life community, too (which we shone a spotlight on last month), with vehicles also accommodating bike storage, workshop facilities and more.
But the thing is, conjuring up thousands of pounds, hundreds of hours of labour and a deep understanding of mechanical engineering is simply beyond the means of many people, myself included. I’m an outdoorsman; I love camping, endurance hiking, campfires, roadtrips, extremely cold water – the lot. Unfortunately, where van life is concerned, scrolling through Instagram accounts going green with envy is as about far as I can go with it.
So, I wondered – is it possible to emulate that experience without a van? I’ve done tons of tent and tarp camping (see my bikepacking feature last issue), I’ve driven my faithful Volkswagen Golf tens of thousands of miles around the UK, from Cape Wrath to Penzance, and I’ve suffered through many a night’s ‘sleep’ wrapped in a sleeping bag with the driver’s seat wound back, or shivering in a bivvy bag at the side of the road. What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.
What I want to know is, can I be motorhome-comfy without buying a van? The answer came in an email from Charlie Evans – adventurer, mountain biker and founder of Latitude Tents. Latitude began as an attempt to create a tougher, comfier and easier-to-use car roof tent for Charlie’s roadtrips. Their tents cleverly concertina inwards into a rigid metal box, which bolts securely onto your car’s roof bars. The ingenuity of the design and simplicity of fitting and set-up seemed like a perfect way to add some muchneeded comfort and space to my little car, so I headed over to Charlie’s headquarters in Frome, Somerset and got my battered old Golf fitted with a shiny new second storey. Next stop – the great outdoors!
It was ‘in tents’
Joining me on this adventure is MBUK tester, MTB guide and West Country expert Katherine Moore. Kat’s in-depth knowledge of the South West’s trails and her love of adventure will be indispensable on this mission, and Charlie fits her Škoda Octavia with a roof tent of its own. We hit the M5 and head south, our sights vaguely set on South Devon. After a brief stop in the delightful market town of Chudleigh, south of Exeter, we cut west into the eastern reaches of Dartmoor National Park and land at the Hennock Hideaways campsite, which Kat knows is a great stopover point and a perfect base for mountain biking, with excellent trails to be found a short distance in every direction.
Finding a perfect pitch on top of a hill with a spectacular view over a lush green valley, it’s time to make our homes for the night. We remove the canvas cover from each roof tent, unclip the safety straps and pull. As the base unfolds, the tent erects itself in an incredibly satisfying display. A couple of guy ropes secure the tent’s porch, and we’re done. In just a couple of minutes, we’ve got a two-storey house each and are already firing up the stove for a brew as other campers struggle with their tent poles. I climb the ladder and check out the interior. As I scramble inside, my hands and knees sink into a thick memory-foam mattress that forms the floor. I lie down for a second to check it out and can instantly feel my eyelids getting heavier. This is proper comfort – no sleeping mats here! Kat has already decked out her tent with a thick double duvet and pillows, as well as the obligatory fairy lights (we’re trying to live the #vanlife, after all!). The tent’s windows and impressive sunroof are opened, and the elevation above the car allows a cool breeze to waft through. This is pretty damned good.
Evening out
Next up, some riding! We kit up, lock our valuables in our cars and spin out of the campsite along a farm track towards the nearby woods. It’s a roasting summer afternoon and we’re treated to a seriously sweaty slog along a punishing singletrack ascent up the opposite side of the valley. From the top, we can see our car tents standing proud in the distance and admire them as we catch our breath. What follows is one of the deadliest descents I’ve ever embarked on. Techy? Not really. Steep? Nah. But it’s a totally unmanageable tangle of bramble thorns, and by the bottom we feel like we’ve been grated. With slashed-up arms still stinging and daylight failing, we speed back to the campsite on some (thankfully) more forgiving doubletrack. Having changed out of our riding clobber, we stick our bikes in our cars and lock them up – a luxury that sleeping in a regular tent doesn’t usually afford you. We wipe down our bleeding forearms, apply a healthy coating of insect repellent and get a fire going. As the sun sets over the valley we sit in our camping chairs, sipping a beverage and cooking food over a roaring fire. Normally I’d have exhausted myself to get to this point on an outdoor trip, but it occurs to me that on this occasion I’ve put all my stamina into riding instead, which is a great feeling. Kat produces a huge bag of marshmallows and some skewers, and we toast them before climbing our respective ladders and hitting the hay .
“A STEEP ASCENT TO THE TOP OF HOUND TOR PROVES A CHALLENGE AS WE PUMP OVER THE HUGE STONE SLABS THAT MAKE UP THE TRAIL”
Moor tech, moor fun
The blazing summer sun wakes us early and, after a supremely comfortable night on our foam mattresses, we’re primed for a morning ride. Kat pulls out her phone and pinpoints a trailhead near Manaton, deep in Dartmoor. We clear up the ashes of the fire, head to the shower block for a freshen-up then pack down our tents – a process that proves just as easy and fast as erecting them was. Grabbing the lower part of the ladder, we lift it and the tent folds cleanly inwards, with the ladder perfectly taking the weight of the structure as it slides back into its housing. Then it’s simply a case of slapping the canvas cover back on, clipping it down and zipping off to the trails.
This ride we’re truly on for some tech, beginning with a steep ascent to the cairn on top of Hound Tor, which proves a serious challenge as we pump over the huge stone slabs that make up the trail. We know we’re coming down the same way, though, so I use the climb to plan the line that’ll eke out the most fun from the terrain. When the time comes to turn around and descend, I go a little overboard, and when we stop for snaps halfway down, photographer Ian points out that I’ve gone and got myself a flat rear tyre. We’re so close to the cars that it’s not worth faffing around fixing it, so I push my heavy e-bike back down the hill. This feels a little anticlimactic, but the rest of our trip has been amazing, with all the luxury and sense of adventure you see on social media, without the van!
LATITUDE TENTS
Adventurer and long-time MBUK reader Charlie Evans founded Latitude Tents after he struggled to find a suitable roof tent for a low-budget roadtrip across Europe. His aim was to design something stronger, comfier and more straightforward to put up and dismantle. The resulting tents are super-cosy, incredibly easy to use and a fraction of the cost of buying a van to live the nomadic life with your mountain bike. Find out more at www.latitudetents.com
