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Once you’ve purchased your rooftop tent, you’ll soon discover that ownership fosters a remarkable level of spontaneity. You see, all it takes is to gather up a few essentials before you can leave Monday to Friday behind you and set off for a weekend of adventure. Escape from home, get outdoors, explore somewhere you’ve never been, fall under the spell of a crackling campfire…but most of all, take a deep breath and savour the moment as you distance yourself from the pressures of society, social and media.
Now, if your sights are set on longer-term overlanding escapades, you may already have a purpose-built vehicle all set to go. For you, it’s a case of throwing those quickly summoned essentials into the back, turning the key, and pressing the loud pedal—and off you go. On the other hand, it might just be the family wagon or company workhorse that needs to be dressed up for the occasion. By that I mean, securing the tent onto the roof with a rack or crossbars—preferably without too much faff.
BASICS
Let’s begin by looking at the basics. We’ve already spoken about roof racks and crossbars, and that the rooftop tent is held firmly in place with strong hardware. We also know that it is important to have enough space beneath the roof rack or bars so that you can locate fixing brackets, put the nuts on the bolts, and tighten everything up using a spanner or socket. The tighter the space, the quicker you will lose patience—trust me when I say that tightening eight nuts can take considerably longer than you could ever imagine in your worst nightmare, if the conditions are against you. If you are doing this for a weekend and have to reverse the process on Sunday night, then your spirits may well become quickly dampened.
QUICK RELEASE
So what if you could do away with the all the fiddly assembly and just pop your tent into place. Click. Finished. Well, there are some clever people out there who have obviously lost their rag a few times too many, because they have come up with different variants of the same solution.
Quick releases are each made up of two halves. One is permanently installed on the tent base, the other on the roof rack or cross bars. These are an absolute game changer if you’re not allowed to leave the tent in place or don’t want to unnecessarily carry stuff around to the detriment of your fuel consumption.
Ask your dealer/tent manufacturer if they have a solution. If not, jump on your favourite search engine, type in quick release for rooftop tent…et voilà. If you’re not sure what you should be looking for exactly, have a look at Hard Impact Designs or Front Runner Outfitters to see two different types of problem solvers and get a better idea of what you need.
By the way, quick releases can also come in handy when you need to store the rooftop tent when it’s not on the car. After all, it is a fairly substantial package and will take up a lot of floor space. Attaching a second set of the roof rack components to a wall in your garage (or other storage area) allows you to safely pack the tent vertically against a wall without the risk of it being knocked over and squashing Junior or the household pet.
THE SIX PACK
Ok. So you can now secure and release your rooftop tent in the very slow blink of an eye. But, if you still belong to the fraternity who need to mount the rooftop tent on Fridays and dismount it again on Sundays, then you’re going to need a six-pack or whatever it is your neighbour considers his favourite beverage. 50 kilos, 60 kilos, or more, won’t just get up on the roof on their own, and even the strongest among us will struggle with the totally unmanageable dimensions single handedly. You will need a second pair of hands.
Unless, of course, you have a garage with a door high enough to let you drive your fully loaded car inside and use a cradle mounted to the ceiling to raise and lower the rack and tent at will.
CONCLUSION
If you are planning to put the rooftop tent on top of your vehicle and leave it there, then investing whatever time it takes to mount everything securely with the supplied hardware is probably not a big deal.
If, on the other hand, the first burst of sun breaking through the clouds has you chomping at the bit and you need to convert your daily driver into a camper for a couple of days at regular intervals throughout the year, consider quick releases. Less room for error, quick and safe to use on the car and in storage.
