Big Agnes Copper Spur UL1 Bikepack

We don't stock this shelter and haven't slept in it. What we hold is the measurements its maker published, and the one question those answer that a spec sheet never does.

Big Agnes Copper Spur UL1 Bikepack — shelter drawn to scale. Inner floor 216 by 97 cm. Packed poles 30.5 cm: fits across a 40 cm drop bar.
Big Agnes Copper Spur UL1 Bikepack, drawn from the maker's published figures. Inner floor 216 × 97 cm, with a 183 cm sleeper drawn in for scale. The packed poles are 30.5 cm.

Will it go on your bars?

The folded pole set is 305mm, the 6th shortest of the 29 shelters we hold a pole length for. At 1050g it is 25th lightest of 37.

On drop bars
305mm poles — fits drop bars

Comfortably inside the usable span on drop bars, with room for cables and a harness.

On flat bars
305mm poles — fits flat bars

Comfortably inside the usable span on flat bars, with room for cables and a harness.

A pole set clears drop bars under 350mm and is marginal to 380mm; on flat bars those figures are 450mm and 500mm. Those are usable span between the hoods, not measured bar width. Check the clear run on your own bike before committing — hoods, cables and light mounts all eat into it.

What will it pack into?

Big Agnes gives the packed size as 34 x 15 cm, which read as a stuff sack is 6 litres. Of the 55 bags we hold a published capacity for, 28 have room for it on their own and 27 do not.

Volume against volume, which is the honest limit of this: it says the bag is big enough, not that a tent-shaped object goes through its opening. "Spare" is what is left for everything else, and a shelter that only just fits leaves nowhere for a sleeping bag.

What the maker publishes

Folded pole length305mm
Packed size34 x 15 cm
Minimum weight1050g
Packed weight1247g
Sleeps1
Inner floor216 × 97 cm

Blank fields stay blank. Where a maker doesn't publish a figure we say so rather than estimating one.

Shorter poles and lighter, same capacity

The only unambiguous comparison: shelters sleeping the same number that pack shorter poles and weigh less. Anything else is a trade rather than a win.

Nordisk Lofoten 1 ULW
220mm poles · 490g
MSR Hubba Hubba Bikepack 1
300mm poles · 930g

How this figure is held at all

29 of the 43 shelters we track publish a folded pole length. It is the number that decides handlebar carry and the one most makers leave out, which is why the tent finder filters on it and reports how many shelters it had to exclude for missing it. The shortest set we hold is the Nordisk Lofoten 1 ULW at 220mm.

by Brian Williams · 6 years bikepacking