Designing the Mid. Sidewinder
It took a few months, and quite a few prototypes, long discussions with Christian (sewing guru), and testing to finally land upon the Sidewinder. The idea was simple enough: Make the greatest pyramid tent ever (Trump voice). But really, I wanted to at-least make a damn good pyramid tent. Big, light, flexible and sturdy. I wanted to tent to feel bigger than it was, to be robust enough for serious use, and more flexible than most competing tents. Basically, I wanted to make that one bad-ass pyramid tent.
When designing this tent I wanted to take all the downfalls of a pyramid tent into consideration and try and mitigate the downsides.
Here is a list of downsides that I personally think a pyramid tent has:
When it rains, its hard to get in and out without everything on the inside getting drenched
Many tent manufacturers put too much emphasis on the Catenary cut - that the tent loses too much liveability on inside
Not enough guy outs
Trekking pole in middle of tent cuts off too much space - because tent is too small
A hassle to setup inner tent.
Only tent manufacturers own inner-tent works
One of the first prototypes during the design process.. here you can see we started with no catenary cuts.
Prototype #2 - This one took some inspiration with from the Ultamid series tents from Hyperlite mountain gear. However, we couldn’t really see the function of having the woven dyneema on the peak - in fact, this dyneema is a weakening factor as it must be stitched into place and can’t be bonded as well as pure dyneema fabric.
To mitigate these issues we focused on several aspects:
The tent needed to be long and wide. Somebody tall needed to be able to use this tent. Using a half insert, there is no chance at all of rain getting inside the tent.
With the sidewinder, we even gave the tent a massive awning - this allows for the tent to be open and a large space to cook and so on without getting rained on.
We tested several catenary cut designs - and found a good balance between wind-shedding and liveable space. There is enough catenary cut to shed wind, but not so much that all liveable space is gone. To mitigate some of that wind-shedding performance, we build the Mid. with a ton of guy outs.
We use double - two way zippers. This for added ventilation as well as a possibility of using the Mid. with a tent stove - where the stove can easily pop out the top.
The Mid. is compatible with pretty much all pyramid inner tents. The exception being perhaps the Hyperlite mountain gear Ultamid inserts - as those have front entry, rather than side entry.
The inner can leave in place, so setup and tear down would be very similar to nordic style tents. You can also, remove the inner with ease, setup only the outer and so on.
Prototype #4 - this one was used during an 8 day 165 kilometer walk along Padjalentaleden and Nordkalottleden in Norther Sweden. After testing it, we realised that some changes where needed. Among other things a deeper catenary cut, better strengthening along the zipper, an Awning feature and taking away the unnecessary extra woven fabric on the outside of the peak. We also found the stitched in guy outs higher up in the mid were weakening factors as the 1. where very difficult to seam seal and 2. would weaken the overall structure of the tent. 3. Being so high up, the tie-outs unbalanced the tent and make a tight pitch very difficult.
Prototype #6 and Production model. We added a sidelong zipper - allowing for big awning. Bonded the tie outs lower down on the tent for better balance. Deeper catenary cuts without losing too much liveable space and strengthened all the tie outs and especially around the zipper.
The Sarek Gear Mid. Sidewinder with awning pitched out. (production model has buckle halfway up zipper to take stress off zipper)
Here you can see the Six moon designs Serenity bug net inside - works as a Half insert.
