I’ve had the tent now for five months and have camped in it more than fifty times, so now is a good time to review it.
I have the X-Mid 2 with footprint attached all of the time. I also have the Durston Z-Flick poles (as I travel by bike and don’t have hiking poles).
My initial impression was that it was amazingly simple and quick to pitch. Maybe I just got lucky the first few times, but I had it almost perfect from the start. However, I got worse, probably thinking it was too easy. I didn’t have it right the first time it rained heavily, and I found the inner tent touching the fly and eventually dripping a little water inside.
I’m still no expert in pitching it. To do that I’d need to try different things, experiment a little and then get into it and check the result. I’m too lazy for that at the end of a days ride, but I’m getting better.
Space-wise, I fit all of my gear and myself comfortably inside the tent. I’m 1.89 metres but I sleep pretty comfortably. This is good and bad though. A couple of times it’s been a bit difficult to squeeze it into the available space due to its size, but so far it’s been ok.
I’ve camped in some horrible conditions. In Denmark, we had 65km/hr winds for one whole evening. I guyed and pegged everything that could be guyed or pegged. The tent shook all night with the gusts, but stayed in place and upright with no damage. I thought that was really impressive. I had similar conditions in Sardinia with the same results.
The titanium pegs that come with it are quite frail and I’ve been using some older larger ones from my last tent. For longer term travel, I’d recommend having a few very sturdy pegs.
I’m yet to pitch it in a particularly rocky or hard ground spot i.e. without pegs, although I’ve seen and read how this can be done. My previous tent was free standing and therefore very flexible in where I could pitch it but I haven’t yet found the X-Mid to be constricting in this regard. There’s always a solution.
Overall, I love the tent and the secure space it provides. It’s robust and so far lives up to all the hype and amazing reviews.