A two-person model weighing only around 1kg, the Freelite 2 also makes a luxurious - and highly portable - shelter for one, finds Toby Archer. If you're after a tent that's both ultralight and airy for summer, MSR's Freelite series is worth a closer look.

To many of us in the UK, and other cool and damp parts of the world, a "real tent" is a double-walled one, where waking up in the morning doesn't involve wetting your sleeping bag against condensation-soaked walls, as is often a problem with single skin shelters, or having the wind gusting over you as can happen with tarps. But double-walled can still mean very light. The updated Freelite models are up there with the lightest tents available for their size and, since MSR stopped making the Carbon Reflex range of tents, they are the lightest that they make.

I was originally going to review the Freelite 2's smaller sibling, the Freelite 1, as I was wanting to review an as-light-as-possible double-walled tent for use on my own. At this stage of my life, if I'm not in our big family tent, I'm most likely to be alone for nights out under "canvas", whether I'm hiking, winter climbing or bikepacking before or after camping out, hence my original interest in the one man version.

Unfortunately last year the Freelite 1 (£470) was hard to come by (though it now seems to be available - along with the Freelite 3 at £660) so MSR suggested we review the Freelite 2 instead. The difference in weight is actually pretty small - MSR give the Freelite 2 a packaged weight of 1.06 kg, to the 1's 0.89 kg, but obviously the Freelite 2 is more spacious with an inner tent floor width of 127cm compared to 84cm for the Freelite 1. I've used the two-man Freelite 2 solely on my own, and while it would be cosy for two it has proven to be a luxurious shelter for just me.

Liveability

By necessity, this review focuses on the Freelite 2 predominantly used as a shelter for just one.

Making a tent with space for two people at around a kilo is clearly not an easy task, and the price reflects this

Having said this, it is clearly designed for two - at floor level there is enough width for two adults to sleep. The inner tent is rectangular so unlike some lightweight models there is as much width at the foot end as there is at the head end. Two 51cm wide mats fit easily inside without either touching the sides or each other. At head height, if sitting up, there is definitely less room as a result of the pole arrangement and relatively narrow cross pole that gives width at the highest part of the tent. This design is discussed in more detail below, but I would imagine that for two people using the tent it would be when sitting up, particularly side by side that they would most likely notice congestion in the airspace compared to the plentiful space and ground level.

A friend, looking into the tent from his pitched next door to mine on a campsite in the Valle dell'Orco, commented he was glad his airline luggage allowance had allowed him to bring his own tent as the two of us in the Freelite for a week would have been a squash! The Freelite 2 does have two doors and porches though, so two campers would have space under the fly on their respective sides for putting boots on, cooking and the like.

A few little features help with the liveability: there are pockets on the sides at the head of the tent with small holes at the base that allow power cables to be run from something on the floor to something in the pocket. There are two ceiling pockets as well. A headtorch might stay in the ceiling sleeves, but something smooth like a phone can easily slip out.  

Design

The Freelite 2 is a semi-freestanding design. The poles form an asymmetric tripod shape: the two shorter poles (that go out to the corners of the 'head end' of the tent) meet the long pole (that forms the spine of the tent) towards the head-end of the tent. The long, transverse, pole fits into a grommet in the middle of the tent at the foot-end. So while the head-end of the tent has the rigidity of poles going into the corners, the foot-end only has the pole coming down in the middle and the corners need to be pegged out to create a taut rectangular shape at the base of the tent.

There is a short cross- or spreader-pole that sits on top of the transverse pole and connects to both the inner tent and fly sheet to give some width at head height when sitting in the tent. The spreader pole is a common feature on MSR's backpacking tents, both the Hubba and Elixir ranges have similar, but with the Freelite being designed with minimal weight as the prime consideration, the spreader pole is shorter than with the other models. This means that the side walls of the Freelite inner tent are sloping rather than the near-vertical of the other designs. Whilst this will help save weight it does mean there is less headroom when sitting up in the tent. Using the tent on your own, this really isn't an issue. Having said that, the Freelite 2 is a modern design and there is still much more head room at the apex than in classic ridge or single transverse-pole designs.

The shorter spreader pole does cause one problem though - the ends of the spreader pole also form the top of the two zip doors on the fly sheet. The bathtub-style groundsheet is considerably wider than the spreader pole, so that when you open the doors on the fly, invariably water drips from these apex points onto the inner tent sides (if the inner tent doors are zipped closed) or into the tent itself if the inner tent doors are open. Using the tent on my own, this normally meant small puddles on the groundsheet, but if you were using the tent with another person almost certainly the drips would fall onto your sleeping bag. You would think once aware of this issue you'd find a way to avoid it, but so far I've not been able to.

Like, I believe, most other MSR tents, the Freelite 2 is an inner-pitching first design. For some people this may seem a deal breaker. Personally I don't worry about it too much, I can put the tent up on my own in a few minutes and even in moderate rain can get the flysheet over pretty quickly and the inner doesn't get particularly wet and dries rapidly once I'm inside. Down the decades, I have owned or borrowed tents that are inner-pitching-first, outer-pitching-first, and those where the two parts go up together. All have some advantages and some disadvantages.

One other noticeable design feature is that at the head-end of the tent, MSR have saved weight by in effect making a 'cut out' on the fly, instead extending the waterproof material of the bathtub groundsheet upwards, so it becomes basically the end wall of the tent. This works fine in terms of weatherproofing - but I have noted despite the rest of the inner tent being made of mesh, you definitely get condensation build up on that end-wall of the tent, where moisture condenses on the non-breathable material. It's not a massive issue, but as with any part of the design that minimises weight, there will always be a compromise in some other aspect of the performance. 

Materials and construction

According to MSR the fly material is "5D ripstop nylon 1200mm Durashield™ polyurethane & silicone", the inner tent is predominantly "10D polyester micro-mesh", and the groundsheet is "15D ripstop nylon 1200mm Durashield™ polyurethane & DWR". 

The groundsheet does feel very light, but in the interests of testing I have used the tent predominantly without an undersheet of any type and so far it remains in good order despite at least a couple of weeks of use. MSR makes a universal footprint for all their 2 person tents, although with an RRP of £52 (sold widely for about ten quid less though), they are not cheap! I use a sheet of Tyvek house wrap bought via a certain online marketplace for about an eighth of that price.

The flysheet feels light and silky, and water beads up and runs off it easily. It doesn't seem to absorb water, even when very wet, if you shake the fly as you are taking down the tent, most of the water flicks off and the fly feels almost dry. Nevertheless, it must absorb some because, as with any nylon flysheet, you are able to tighten the tension on the fly after the Freelite has been up in the rain.. 

The seams are taped, but some of the tape was visibly peeling quite quickly. I think this is a more complex issue than it might seem at first glance. Yes - it doesn't look good, but I think all the tape is still attached to the actual seam stitching which, of course, is what needs to be sealed. The silicon-coated nylon, that the fly is made from, is also notoriously difficult to get anything to stick to permanently. Some past MSR models (and other brands' tents) I have reviewed haven't come seam sealed, so I wonder if there was some pressure from customers and reviewers to do so. But, at the same time, paint-on seam sealant might be more effective in the longer term for sil-nylon tents if a pain for customers to have to do. I have used the tent in some alpine storms with a lot of rain and didn't notice any leaking through the seams, so even if the tape looks like it is peeling, it still seems to be stopping ingress of water through the stitching.

I have had some stitching fail on one of the reinforced corner guy-out points. It's nothing that I can't fix simply either by hand or on my sewing machine, but it's always annoying to see these little problems develop on a still quite new and expensive tent.

Weather performance

The sloping sidewalls are quite large, particularly toward the foot end of the tent where only the one transverse pole meets the ground. These can catch the wind if it is coming from the side of the tent, or just buffeting about in various directions. If the wind direction is constant and you pitch with the foot-end (so where the transverse pole also ends) into it, as well use all the guyline, the tent is quite aerodynamic and resists even quite strong gusts successfully. But while camping on an alpine campsite for a week, we had a stormy night that came from a new direction and the first few strong gusts of wind, before the heavy rain began, hit the side of the tent, and it really deflected and strained. Fortunately it was just a few minutes of these gusts and I used my feet to help support the poles, but I don't think the tent would have fared well with sustained side wind. Of course normally when backpacking, you will just pitch for a night and can pitch into the wind. But wind direction can change suddenly, so the Freelite is not the ideal tent to leave pitched on exposed high campsites or to go out into winter storms with.

In terms of bad weather protection, it is definitely improved if you add guylines to the tie out points on the tent that don't have them attached from the factory. This helps keep wind from getting under the fly and adds some general stability. The tent comes with 8 of MSR's perfectly usable but still light tent pegs. This is enough for all the pegging points around the tent except for the two additional guy lines that MSR provides (the customer can decide if and where to attach them). I immediately fitted those guys, so added two additional pegs for them, and then added two more of my own tie-out guys, so added two further pegs.

Tents with inners made fully from mesh have advantages, they are often lighter, more airy when it is hot and often feel less claustrophobic. But there are also disadvantages: using the Freelite 2 on a very windy night, it was definitely much more "breezy" inside the zipped up tent than in one with a solid inner tent, because as the wind buffets the flysheet, this movement moves air around inside. For this reason we'd say that this model is optimised for summer and less ideal in the cold.

Weight & packabilty

With my peg and guy line additions, all packed my Freelite 2 weighs 1192g on my scales. MSR says packed weight is 1060g, so this feels about right. MSR gives a minimum weight of 910g I suspect by not taking the tent, pole and peg bags and taking out the additional guys and pegs you can get to about that weight. Even with all the trimmings, it's pretty darn light for a two-person double-walled tent.

Packed up, the tent is pretty compact, its packed length is about 48cm - this is basically the packed length of the poles. They fit fine into even quite small rucksacks, but as bikepacking becomes ever more popular it's worth noting that this is too long for many bikepacking bags. On my gravel bike, although they are just shorter than my framebag's length, I can't actually get them through the zip on that bag. They have to sit on top of the frame bag, under the crossbar. This works ok, but leads to a bit of rubbing and needs an extra Voile strap to make absolutely sure I don't lose them. On my mountain bike, I've mounted them on top of my handlebar pack. Again, fine but needs more thinking on how to secure them so there is no chance they can get lost.

For dedicated bike fans, next year MSR are bringing out bikepacking-specific versions of the Hubba and Hubba Hubba, which will feature shorter pole sections for easier stowage.

Summary

The RRP of the Freelite 2 is £570, although they are being sold at a slight discount. It's an awful lot of money, although looking at tents of a similar size and weight from other well respected lightweight specialists such as Nemo, Big Agnes, Sea to Summit, Terra Nova and Exped, the MSR Freelite 2's price is not particularly remarkable. If you are willing to carry about 300g more weight, you can start finding tents for a couple of hundred quid less. But making a tent that has liveable space for two people at around or less than a kilo is clearly not an easy engineering and sewing task, and the price reflects this.

The Freelite 2 is not the perfect tent but after many decades of camping in dozens of different backpacking and mountaineering tents, I'm firmly of the opinion there are no perfect tents out there and probably never will be. It is, though, a very impressively light tent for the space on offer. So despite the foibles and minor annoyances that are really just trade-offs with that 1 kilo weight, I know that it is the tent I will reach for regularly in the future when out on human-powered trips of many kinds.