Finally put my FSR Adventure Series Manual 60 to use!
Spring and summer flew by! I've just gotten back from using my FSR Adventure Series Manual 60 RTT for the first time! I got this tent to use with my 2008 JKU riding on 33's with a Teraflex Nebo roof rack. When I had received the tent, I found the included mounting brackets just didn't fit the Nebo crossbars. So, I sent an email to FSR. Within a few hours I had responses saying they would figure out something to help me. They asked for a measurement of the crossbars. A few days later I received a package from FSR. They had bent their stock mounting brackets to fit the crossbars I have! I thought this was excellent customer service on their part!
As mentioned, I had narrowed down to this tent in my search for an RTT. My goal was to get an RTT that was relatively light, didn't stick up too high, had a built in rain fly, could fit 3 people, and a competitive price. The only two tents that matched these requirements were the FSR Adventure Series or the James Baroud Horizon. The FSR was nearly $800 less and looked to be a unique tent in a sea of look alikes. One minor issue is that the FSR website claims the height of this tent folded down is 9”. In reality, it's closer to 11”. But this makes a difference in my case because I have to be able to fit the Jeep with the tent on it, through the garage door!
The Teraflex Nebo is a fairly low rise roof rack. In fact, when the FSR tent is resting on it, there is not enough room for the stock M8 bolts and the knob nuts. I had to purchase slightly shorter M8 bolts and locknuts instead from my local hardware store. This is not a big deal though as we're talking less than $10 for this.
The tent fits just about perfectly on the Nebo rack in relation to height. There is just enough room to reach in with a ratcheting wrench to tighten the mounts. Yet it all fits fairly low to the roof. I can just squeeze under the garage to get the Jeep out!
Since it's Labor Day weekend, all the nearby camp grounds were full. So we found a spot at a State Park about 1.5 hour away. I was expecting the Jeep to drive differently with the tent mounted on it. Other than the automatic shifting sooner to get up hills, I didn't notice any difference in driving characteristics. It drove down the highway planted and without any drama. I was also expecting there to be a lot of wind noise with the extra 11 inches sticking up on top of the Jeep. But it was not bad at all! Gas mileage went from around 19.5 MPG to 16.5 with the RTT. Not bad especially considering that my JKU hasn't been properly re-geared for the larger tires.
On the drive, we got a lot of stares with the RTT mounted on the Jeep. We arrived at the campground and I found a level spot to park the Jeep at our campsite. Taking the PVC cover on the RTT took a few minutes to remove. This is the lengthiest part about setting up this RTT at around a whopping 4 minutes or so. Once the cover is off, the tent pops up effortlessly in about a minute or so. And this is with just one person doing all the work (my wife and daughter didn't feel confident enough about setting it up for the first time to help). In a total of about 5-6 minutes the tent was completely setup and ready for use. The ladder seems to be of great quality and telescopes out easily. As soon as the tent was set up, we got ooh's and aah's from the nearby campers. Nearly everyone commented on how they had never seen anything like it and how cool it was! It was quite an attention getting setup! Not exactly my goal but it's all part of the ownership experience I suppose.
My daughter had a fun time playing up there in the tent while my wife and I got the grill going and began preparing the meal.
It was starting to get dark and so I started taking our pillows and blanket up to the tent. Once in there, I noticed my daughter had already discovered all the various hooks at the inside corners of the tent for hanging personal belongings. Also, there are two large pouches with multiple pockets for placing various things such as wallets, phones, etc. The tent also has two vents built into the frontside. Also placed on both sides of the ladder mount are two large pouches that fold down to place shoes into. Before the evening was over, we had these stuffed with about 5 pairs of shoes total. That's what happens when you travel with ladies!
Once we all got in, we had enough room for the three of us to lay in there and be comfortable. The tent has both mesh windows as well as zipper panels that fold down when unzipped for rain or privacy. It was in the high 70's by now so we chose to leave all the windows unzipped and let the air flow through. Inside it was very comfortable temperature wise. At night the temps got down to 59 but it remained comfortable. Also it was comfortable with the dual foam mattress that the tent comes with. The lower layer is a thin foam. And then on top of it is a memory foam that is much thicker. There is a nice diamond stitched cover to go over all of this. The end result is a very comfortable mattress in the tent. If it weren't for my daughter kicking me in the middle of the night, I would have slept all the way through!
In the morning, when I got out of the tent, there was so much fog and morning dew that it looked like it had rained. But fortunately for us, the FSR tent is well sealed and we did not notice any leaks. As we prepared to get going, putting the tent back down and getting the cover on was just as easy as putting it on. It all went together very quickly and we were on the road!
Overall, I'm very happy with the purchase. I have a feeling that we're going to be using this tent often and that I'll need to start buying other camping gear for future trips!
