Aqua quest hooped bivvy

Now this is a piece of kit that has a lot and I mean a lot of memories for me, it is now retired as it got left in storage for quite some time and some of the material degraded, and it developed some holes, but the aqua quest hooped bivvy was what I slept in for the duration of my adventure cycling around the entire mainland British coastline. 42 days 4800~ miles. And then not long after I decided to sleep in this thing for a further 3 months nearly every day during the months of November-January. Some of which saw the temperature drop down to -10.

Just like the alpkit hunka bivvy I would use this is if I wanted the benefit of easy stealth camping, fast set up but with a little more luxury than a standard bivvy, the difference just being able to get it off your face cant be understated. Looking at it today it’s not really that light it weighs about 1kg, that’s with the pole, but this thing can take a beating (and has) the material feels a lot thicker than the tents and bivvies you see for sale now but this thing kept me dry and comfortable in some pretty tough conditions. Its very good in the wind as its incredibly low profile and for a bivvy its actually nice to live with, yes it’s true you can’t completely sit up, but you can prop you head up a bit, if its not going to rain, you can unzip this bivvy both sides down to about your knees and just leave the bug net up. Ohh yeah, I forgot to mention it also has a built-in bug net.

Putting this bivvy up is straight forward and quick it’s just 3 stakes and 1 pole, this pole could definitely be made lighter, and I always thought about getting a custom one made that could break down into more parts to make it smaller to carry on the bike. But atlas, I never got round to it. The pole does slide through a sleeve which does feel quite dated looking at it now in 2024, but it’s simple enough, just stake the one stake behind the head and two on each corner at the foot compartment. The great thing with this bivvy is it has a further two little attachments that if you tie off, you can lift this of you even further. Which does help a lot with ventilation. Bivvies in general are known to get a bit wet with condensation and this one is no different, it’s mostly just towards the bottom of the sleeping bag that I found got a little damp in certain conditions. If you can get a breeze coming towards the head of this bivvy, then that helps a lot with ventilation as there is a little vent there.

For the £100 I paid for this it was well worth the money, at least back then, I’m not sure if I would buy this now because its a bit bulky by today’s standards but back in 2017 this was my home for a lot of that year, and it was with me for some of the most memorable moments of my life. Ohh, and it’s got a window that helps a bit to make it feel a bit more roomy.