Lone Rider Moto Tent Review: A Two-Person Tunnel Tent With a Garage

Introduction

Some tents are bought for a weekend in the woods. The Lone Rider Moto Tent is bought because you want the motorcycle sleeping beside you. It is a two-person, non-freestanding tunnel tent built around a storage bay large enough to roll an adventure bike inside, and the numbers explain the appeal immediately: 13 feet 8 inches of total length, a storage area 7 feet 11 inches wide at its widest point, and a peak height of 6 feet 7 inches. Packed, it weighs about 12 pounds and measures roughly 27 inches by 10 inches. The list price is $600.

That combination of living space and bulk is the entire story of this tent. It is not trying to be a lightweight backpacking shelter. It is a base camp that happens to fold up.

Who This Tent Is For

This is a tent for riders who treat the motorcycle as part of the campsite rather than something left outside it. Adventure and touring riders, overlanders, and car or truck campers who want a large weather-tight living space will find the layout makes immediate sense. It also suits two people who want a proper sleeping cabin plus a covered gear room, and anyone who camps in regions where rain arrives often and stays a while.

It is not for backpackers, weight-conscious cyclists, or anyone who needs a shelter that disappears into a small pannier. The pack size alone rules that out, and the 12-pound weight makes it a deliberate choice rather than an impulse one.

Main Strengths

The strengths here are structural rather than cosmetic. This is a big, weather-tight shelter with more usable living configurations than most tents in its class.

Weather Protection That Held Up in Heavy Rain

The fly uses a 210 polyester ripstop with a 10,000 mm hydrostatic head rating, and the floor uses a 190T ripstop nylon with the same rating. Nylon is the stronger of the two materials, which is why it is used where abrasion and ground contact matter most. The doors on the front and back close with waterproof zippers, and the side door zipper sits under a storm flap roughly four inches wide, which is an unusually generous overlap.

In sustained testing that included around 19 hours of heavy rain and thunderstorms, the tent stayed completely dry inside with no leaks. For riders who plan trips around uncertain forecasts, that is the most valuable claim a tent like this can make.

Space for a Motorcycle and Camping Gear

The storage bay is the headline feature, and it is genuinely enormous. At its widest point it measures 7 feet 11 inches, with a total tent length of 13 feet 8 inches and a sleeping area 4 feet 8 inches wide. Two people sleep comfortably, though with two occupants most of the luggage will live in the storage area rather than the sleeping cabin.

Inside, the tent is well considered: a bathtub floor, corner pockets, and hooks at the top for a lantern or headlamp. The fabric doors roll back and stow when you want airflow, and the removable inner means the tent can be used as a plain shell when conditions call for it.

Doors That Convert Into Awnings

Both side doors open out into full awnings using two poles per side, and this is the feature that separates the tent from almost everything else at this size. The covered area underneath is large enough for a chair, a table, and a stove. When rain is falling straight down rather than being driven sideways, you can sit, cook, and eat outside the inner tent while staying completely dry.

It is a feature that matters most in wet climates, and it turns a long rainy evening from an endurance test into an ordinary one. The integrated guy lines, complete with stow pouches when they are not needed, are part of the same practical thinking.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The trade-offs are real, and most of them are visible in the specification before you spend anything. Knowing them in advance is the difference between a tent that suits you and one that frustrates you.

Packed Size and Weight

At roughly 27 inches long and 10 inches wide when packed, this is a very large bag, and at around 12 pounds it is a heavy one. Motorcycle riders should measure their luggage options carefully before committing, because the packed dimensions are the single biggest filter on whether this tent works on a given bike. On a truck or car camping setup the size is far less of a problem.

Pitching and Packing Down

Setup is straightforward. The first attempt may take 15 to 20 minutes, and once the sequence is familiar it drops to around 10 minutes: stake out the back, seat the poles, pull the tent out, stake the front, then make your adjustments. The one recurring annoyance is that the grommets the poles seat into are not adjustable, so seating the poles can be a struggle when the fabric is tight.

Breaking down is noticeably harder than putting up. The tent is designed for wet conditions, which means it is often soaked when you take it down, and folding a large, water-heavy, multi-layer tent back into its bag in a real campsite is a chore. It behaves very differently at home on a dry lawn than it does in the wild.

The included 18 tent stakes are sized for backpacking tents rather than a shelter of this weight and footprint. Longer stakes anchor far more reliably, especially in loose soil, where the supplied ones can struggle.

Materials and Price

The fly is 210 polyester ripstop, the floor is 190T ripstop nylon, and the inner is polyester, with aluminium poles and aluminium stakes. Polyester of this grade is most commonly found on inexpensive tents, which is where the tension with the $600 price comes from. The size justifies a lot, but the material spec makes the value question a fair one. There are also loose threads inside the inner and on the body, which is a small but noticeable detail at this price point.

The add-ons deserve caution. A ground sheet for the storage area is offered at $100, and an awning kit with two poles, two guy lines, and two stakes is also $100. Both are poor value. Adjustable third-party poles are a better choice anyway, since you can set one side higher than the other so water sheets off instead of pooling, and plain cord plus a set of larger stakes covers the rest for a fraction of the cost.

Lone Rider lists a single colourway described as dark green with red accents. Depending on the light, the fabric can read closer to a dark grey, and it looks sharp either way.

A Three-Plus Season Hybrid, Not a Four-Season Shelter

The tent is a double-wall design with a fabric inner, and that fabric inner is the reason it is described as a three-plus season hybrid. Fabric inners block airflow and hold in heat, which is exactly what you want in a fourth-season tent and exactly what you do not want in a warm-weather shelter.

The result is a jack of all trades: warmer than an average three-season tent in summer, and less capable than a true four-season tent in winter. Moderate winds and moderate snow loading are manageable. Strong winds and heavy snow loading are not, because the materials simply are not built for those conditions.

Buying Advice

Buy this tent for the space and the weather protection, and buy it knowing what it weighs. If you want a motorcycle parked inside your shelter, or a covered outdoor room for two people in a rainy climate, the Lone Rider Moto Tent delivers something most tents at this price cannot. If your priority is a small pack, a light bag, and fast departures, this is the wrong shelter regardless of how good the awnings are.

Two practical decisions make the purchase work better. First, check the packed dimensions against your actual luggage before ordering, since 27 inches by 10 inches is unforgiving on a tightly loaded bike. Second, buy the tent body and source your own adjustable poles, cord, and longer stakes rather than paying for the add-on kits, which are the weakest part of the whole package.

At $600 the price is high for the material specification, though seasonal sales have brought it closer to $480 to $490, and at that level the value argument becomes much easier to make. The tent is waterproof, genuinely spacious, and pleasant to live in during bad weather. The compromise is that you carry a large, heavy bag and handle a wet pack-down that takes real patience.

Conclusion

The Lone Rider Moto Tent is a specialist shelter that does its job well. The storage bay fits an adventure bike, the twin awnings create usable covered living space, and the waterproofing held up through long, heavy rain without a single leak. The removable inner adds flexibility, the doors and ventilation options are thoughtful, and the interior storage details show that someone thought about how the tent would actually be used.

The caveats are equally clear: 12 pounds, a very large pack, a fiddly pole seating process, a laborious wet pack-down, and a material specification that sits awkwardly against a $600 price. Buy it for the space and the shelter, not for the weight. Riders who accept that trade-off will find very little else that does what this tent does.