Sure-Fire Ways to Improve Your Roof Top Tent

Anyone redo their ladder strap on the Tepui? I have an Autana and the damn thing latches in the middle of the tent. I need to grab some nylon strap and a clipset and move it to one side or the other. Serious PITA to clip it when it's on top of our Expedition. Have to crawl through the sunroof and onto the roof. I have a plan to put a basket up in front of the tent, which would make this even more difficult.
 

NudeLobster

Member
Who all makes a shoe bag for the RTTs. The Yakima and Tepui look good. Any others?
I'm going to go one step forward and ask what people do for shoe bags on a hardshell? All the shoe bags I have seen are meant to attach or hang under the unfolded half of the softshell. Hard shell has no overhang to store it.
 

furbucket

Observer
We hang a cloth shopping bag over the top of one side of the ladder- we have a hard shell James Baroud with the tunnel awning so it stays out of the rain


via Tapatalk on an evil pocket calculator with a flashy screen
 

Beowulf

Expedition Leader
I'm going to go one step forward and ask what people do for shoe bags on a hardshell? All the shoe bags I have seen are meant to attach or hang under the unfolded half of the softshell. Hard shell has no overhang to store it.


Nudelobster

I plan on using an awning gimp extrusion and mounting to my rack. Of course I'll paint it black and try to mount it so only the gimp portion is visible. I'm sure it is available elsewhere, but here is a link to some extrusion. https://www.sailrite.com/Awning-Track-Aluminum-48


522354
 

Wallygator

Adventurer
I'm going to go one step forward and ask what people do for shoe bags on a hardshell? All the shoe bags I have seen are meant to attach or hang under the unfolded half of the softshell. Hard shell has no overhang to store it.

You could hang the bag from the roof rack. Or just wear flip flops up into the tent and keep them in a plastic container or slide them under the tent/rack
 

mobydick 11

Active member
I do not know if this has been suggested or not . But for under your mattress to stop dampness and mold ,I was thinking about a piece of what is put on a new basement before back fill , It is called drainage board ,dimpled plastic sheet that lets the water run through .Also today at Rona i was looking at the dimpled plastic sheet they use under ceramic tile . they also had one that you use with electric in flood heat under the ceramic .It was really neat had round dimples to loop the wire around .
 

greg.potter

Adventurer
One of the things that my wife and I have found with our James Baroud Evasion Evolution RTT is that there is no space to put your clothes or any other "stuff" when settling in for the night. The solution that I came up with was to add a metal wire shelf suspended from the roof above our feet. The shelf was a section of wire frame shelving that you can purchase from any home center. I cut it down to three or four inches less than the distance between the roof raising arms and coated the ends with plasti-dip to prevent snagging on, and cutting of the wall fabric. The particular shelf that I purchased was not quite rigid enough along the one side so I tie-wrapped a piece of 1/2 inch aluminum pipe to that side to keep it from bending. I replaced the bolts attaching the raising arms to the roof with eye bolts and suspended the shelf from the eye bolts using 3/16 cord. I cut a piece of rubber matting the same width as the shelf for a place to put wet shoes so that they wouldn't drip on the bedding. We have also used a piece of rubber floor mat for this purpose, but it was quite a bit heavier.

This simple shelf solution addressed the biggest issue that we had with our RTT - where to put everything when settling in for the night. We had done something similar previously using some cargo netting suspended between the two sides forming a "storage hammock", but the shelf works much better.
 

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SP Jon M3

Observer
I found that the James Baroud mattress wasn’t the most comfortable for me. I’m a side sleeper and found the foam too firm (even with the optional comfort mat installed). So I replaced the mattress with two Exped MegaMats 10 MW (REI calls them the Exped MegaMat Regular Wide) . Now I get the best nights sleep camping I’ve ever had. We chose two mats vs the MegaMat Duo so we can move without disturbing each other’s sleep. I still have the comfort mat installed with the MegaMats.

EDIT: More detail on which Exped MegaMats I installed. Another note is this the the James Baroud Explorer, the regular size. This is not one of their XXL tents or the Grand Raid.
 

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K2ZJ

Explorer

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