Lightweight mallet

[herzog]

Anyone got any recommendations? I'm sick of hunting around trying to find a decent stone/using my shoe.

[meic]

Try asking on a different day.

[thirdcrank]

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en ... CDEQsAQwAA

Just about as lightweight as they come.

[psmiffy]

there are some some very smart, very light, cheap, very brightly coloured plastic tent peg mallets about - but they are pretty useless -the sort of ground that they will work with you can more easily push a peg in with your foot - a happy medium is a small reasonable quality (nothing worse than having one that the head keeps falling off) rubber mallet which works in most conditions where you are pegging out on soil - for campsites where the emplacement have been constructed from crushed rock (common in croatia, corsica, sardinia et al) then moving up to a small metal headed hammer and cheap but robust screwdrivers instead of tent pegs is my option - of course you can do what I see quite a lot of people doing (most often car campers so they really do not have an excuse) and that is to run around trying to borrow one.

The above is a long winded way of saying that in my opinion a proper hammer is a must - when putting up the tent in bad weather (or impending bad weather) then you do not need the hassel of not being able to do a simple task like knocking in tent pegs quickly.

[Robert]

- for campsites where the emplacement

Good to see you're still running on French Time

[yakdiver]

I have this one plastic mallet

[psmiffy]

I have this one plastic mallet

yes thats the one I was talking about above - works but only to a point (mine was yellow maybe the blue ones are better)

[Mick F]

The thing about mallets is you need them to heavy to be effective, but you need them light to be able to be carried.

How about a lightweight hollow mallet that you fill with water to give it some temporary weight?

[psmiffy]

The thing about mallets is you need them to heavy to be effective, but you need them light to be able to be carried.

How about a lightweight hollow mallet that you fill with water to give it some temporary weight?

Would not work in the desert

[cycleruk]

The thing about mallets is you need them to heavy to be effective, but you need them light to be able to be carried.

How about a lightweight hollow mallet that you fill with water to give it some temporary weight?

Would not work in the desert

Then fill it with sand dear Henry.

[psmiffy]

The thing about mallets is you need them to heavy to be effective, but you need them light to be able to be carried.

How about a lightweight hollow mallet that you fill with water to give it some temporary weight?

Would not work in the desert

Then fill it with sand dear Henry.

Sorry most desert sands are relatively single size and carbonate in origon - density would be insufficient for efficient operation - unless of course it was about the size of one of those circus mallets

[herzog]

Thanks for suggestions on the mallet.

Waiting to be corrected, but aren't most deserts composed of silica (silicon dioxide). Silicon dioxide has a greater density than the majority of carbonates present in terrestrial environments. Either way, I hate cycling on sand no matter what the chemical composition

[psmiffy]

sorry - a lot of deserts - the ones I have worked in and sampled are carbonate sands - of course the other reason that it would not work in many deserts is that there is no sand

ditto cycling on sand - an awful linear km of roads in north eastern europe - plus side that it is glacial sand and would have a higher density -assuming that you could dry it out sufficiently to pour into a hollow mallet

[groberts]

I am a qualified and professional geologist,take my word - practically all deserts in the world are formed of silca sand i.e. SiO2 or silica dioxide - carbonate deserts are those with some carbonates (CaO3) added, which doesn't really change the fact they're still basically silca based. This, of course, has nothing do with mallets! Frankly if you want to camp in a desert (sand or carbonate added) the only thing that's going to work is a stake - at least three feet long (for which you'll need a sledge hammer!) or tie your guys to a rock; better still forget it and sleep in the open, the stars are are wonderful .

[horizon]

herzog: I would love to know what your luggage weight is after all these posts about travelling light. We have such strange posts about why you only need to carry x amount and then someone asking the best way to carry the kitchen sink etc. I’ve canoe camped on beaches and carried a special set of long wooden stakes but for cycle camping I have two strategies: for the UK I carry lightweight aluminium pegs – if the weather is that good I’ll worry about getting them in! For Spain I carried about four very long sharp steel pegs and borrowed the mallet (the Germans always had one). For the most part, even thinking about a mallet is pointless because the lightweight pegs won’t take it.

Other people may say get a free-standing tent but I think even these need some pegging in bad weather. I think it is very difficult to be totally self sufficient on a bike – you have to look around and make the best of your surroundings.

Conclusion: forget the mallet.