Microtent

My favourite type of accommodation on longer tours is camping in forests near the road, wherever I happen to stop that day. No searching for hotels, no booking, no missed closing hours, no stress. Classic tents are usually either too big and heavy or too expensive, so I made an experimental minitent from a polyethylene tarp - cheap and easy to obtain in most hardware stores.

The first temporary prototype was in service for seven years (2013..2020). This is how it looks:

A thin rope is duct-taped around the edges of the tarp, providing reinforcement and anchoring loops. Three loops on each side are just enough, the one in the middle of the narrow end can be omitted, the one on the wider end is important - it prevents the tarp from sliding down along the supporting rope. This rope must be run between two solid objects of appropriate height (which somewhat limits your choice of places) and the tarp is then thrown over it and pinned down. At first I used sticks picked at the campsite for pins, then switched to classic metal ones because picking and sharpenings the sticks cost more time than is lost in slower ride due to the extra quarter kilogram of iron on board.

The tarp of these minimalist dimensions (I wouldn't recommend making it any smaller) weighs 380 grams, can be folded and rolled into your sleeping mat and provides space for one horizontal human and all the luggage a bike can carry. Ventilation is good enough, wet clothes are usually a little bit drier in the morning instead of wetter.

Short showers are no problem, the tarp is perfectly watertight, even hailstorms don't harm it. Of course, the water must go somewhere, so don't build the tent in a pit or you will get a pool. Longer rains are somewhat problematic because the tent is too low to sit in, so dressing or eating becomes an acrobatic feat (when it doesn't rain, I do all these things outside). Another potential problem is the supporting rope's material: if it wicks water, it will distribute it across the whole inner surface of the tarp, and the raindrops drumming from above will spray it in your face (doesn't wet you, but keeps waking you up).

If I wanted to make the same tent again, I would make it a bit bigger, reshaped the upper edge (so that it wouldn't retreat down in the middle, shrinking the available roofed space), sewn edges (duct tape delaminates over time) and try to find some other colour than this screaming blue.

Or...

If you don't count every gram and you don't mind needing two poles (preferably trees) instead of one, you can skip all cutting and taping and get a comfortable spacious tent which can accomodate you with a bike or several friends. A 4×3 m tarp with anchoring ropes weighs 730 g and it's better to sleep near the edge where the half metre of overlap is enough to keep you dry. A 4×4 m tarp weighs 1120 g, gives you a metre of overlap on each side, so you can sleep wherever you want and even park a 2.5 m long cargo trike next to your bed.