Having recently packed out about 400 pounds of elk, there's nothing I won't do to make my pack weight the lowest it can go without putting me in danger—thank you, Life Straw. But even before my nine and a half hour packout hell, I was always a fan of going as light as possible, especially when I was camping from the back of a motorcycle.
Even when you have great panniers, any additional weight on an adventure or enduro machine can mean a top-heavy, unstable experience. Something you most definitely don't want when you're 40 miles into the backcountry and the only folks around to help are a bunch of hungry grizzly bears. They don't have thumbs!
And one of the heaviest pieces of kit in anyone's backcountry camping pack is traditionally their tent, as you have a bunch of fabric, poles, and stakes that just pack on the pounds. While there's been some great advances in the area recently, thanks to hunters and ultralight backpackers—stay tuned, I'm using a Stone Glacier ultralight tent for an upcoming adventure on the back of a bike—there hasn't been one specifically designed with the motorcyclist in mind. That's still true with Aper's Apex1 ultralight tent, as it was designed for bicyclists.
