Roofnest Falcon 2 XL + R1S = AWESOME!

[SHPEV]

I was in the market for a rooftop tent for my R1S. (I figured that if I was going to entice my wife into camping—she’s never been—it would have to be a comfortable and relatively easy ordeal.) I considered the Rivian/Yakima option but decided to splurge on a hard-shell RTT. I also wanted a relatively thin RTT so I could store it on the overhead shelving in my garage.

After doing some research, I settled on the Roofnest Falcon 2 XL. https://roofnest.com/product/falcon-xl/ If you don’t know, Roofnest is a US company based in Boulder. The Falcon 2 is their ultra-thin RTT. I sets up in less than a minute. I decided on the XL (60” wide vs the standard 50”) to give us a little more space.

The RTT arrived a few weeks ago. The RTT is very well made. It’s entirely aluminum with heavy duty hinges, latches and struts. It also has a bunch of nice features including a very nice extending ladder, a 2” memory foam mattress, interior LED lighting, various pockets for storage, etc. In short, it‘s a very nice peice of kit.

The Falcon fits nicely on top of the R1S. It’s slightly wider than the roof but not wider than the vehicle itself. I think it looks great on top of the R1S.

We took it out camping this weekend. It was great. Here’s my post about the trip. https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...d-king-basin-alta-lakes-in-r1s-and-rtt.19684/

The Falcon is pretty heavy (175 lbs). So, mounting and removing it requires friends. Or, you can geek out like I did and build a trolly winch system! I bought an inexpensive Vevor 440 lb winch and some trolly wheels which I mounted to a 12 foot peice of Unistrut. To secure the RTT to the winch, I bought a pickup truck bed lifter — essentially a heavy duty H-shaped rig made of square steel tubing. The bed lifter sits on top of the RTT. I run 2” ratchet straps through the cross bars of the bed lifter and around (underneath) the RTT.

With this set up I can back into the garage and lower the tent onto the R1S, take off the straps, lift the rigging and drive out with tent. When the season is over, I back into the garage agin, attach the rig, lift the tent off the bars, pull the R1S out of the garage, rotate the tent 90 degrees, and using the trolly, slide it back over the shelving and let it sit there. Pretty sweet!

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[seanocono]

Your trolley system sounds brilliant. I would love to see a video of it in action if you ever have the time.

 

[aho]

Your trolley system sounds brilliant. I would love to see a video of it in action if you ever have the time.

Same here. I have been meaning to look to storing the RTT on the ceiling, but hadn't had time to do the design or install needed.

 

[tobyringle]

Thanks for sharing! This unit seems to have some definite advantages over the Yakima.....specifically with setup and take down.

 

[SHPEV]

Unfortunately, I’m back in Texas and (as the photo suggests) the RTT is stored for the winter. Ski racks are next! I’ll take a video next spring. When I mounted it the first time, I took a while (and had 2 friends there to help). When I removed it and stored it last week, it was just me and my wife. I could do it alone but I had her there to help guide it past the cables that hold up the shelves.

The trolly system is cool. I had to set up the winch with the pulley hook because that helped center the load laterally on the winch. Without the pulley hook, the cable hangs on one side and the load causes the winch to list/torque on the track which makes it a lot harder to slide with a load. With the pulley hook and the load centered, it slides pretty easily. I am very happy with the results.

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