2020 has been a year of challenges and unexpected obstacles, much grief, and even more misery. But it’s also been a year for major adjustments and growth, as well as rediscovering some of the simplest pleasures in life.
File this camper into the “simple pleasures” of life category. With an unprecedented boom in sales of two-wheelers, particularly e-bikes, comes a boom in accessories and parts for these. e-Bikes don’t just offer independence around town even in heavy traffic, but they also provide us with new ways to explore the outdoors, a convenient means of escaping the realities of busy and crowded urban life.
CreaCon is working off this assumption in designing a camper that aims to reinvent and simplify bikepacking – because, frankly, not everyone is made to live out of a backpack while exploring the great outdoors on a bike. Scout is a camper that’s a perfect match for e-bikes given its size and weight, offering space and shelter for one adult and plenty of provisions (hat tip to New Atlas).
Photo: CreaCon
According to CreaCon, the Scout e-bike camper is perfect for overnight stays, for fishing trips, longer bikepacking treks, for small vendors and even for daily outings – offering you shade and shelter as you enjoy a book or a cold beverage on a bike stop. Currently available in just two variants, Compact and Center, the Scout will also come in a two-person configuration – the Comfort option.
As is, the Scout offers a single-adult sleeping/relaxing space, storage both underneath the bed area for smaller stuff and more storage for larger items up top. A separate hatch allows access to things like snacks and water, which can also be stored up top. The Scout is a boxy, modular camper that expands into single-person decent-sized quarters. Deploying it takes under three minutes and five steps, as can be seen in the video below, and you get an enclosed bed with storage space. You can add more accessories, including a closed entryway you can use as changing room or even to fit another cot in.
The Scout works on any bicycle trailer, but you can also get it as part of a bundle with the Tough trailer from CreaCon. The trailer itself can be used without the camper, so you can haul other stuff like groceries, cargo, or whatever tools you need on a daily basis. Remember this part for later, when we get to pricing.
Photo: CreaCon
As per the official description, the Scout offers “sufficient storage space for all everyday items” – up to 550 liters (145 gallons) in total. Made of 15 mm (0.6-inch) thick, high-strength composite panels, it offers protection both from inclement weather and prying eyes, and is suitable for all-year-round use. It comes with an 8-cm (3.2-inch) thick folding mattress as a standard option, since sleeping on the hard platform is otherwise impossible.
The camper and trailer weigh 47 kg (104 pounds) in total, 19 kg (42 pounds) of which are accounted for by the camper. The Tough trailer comes with a hydraulic, damped overrun brake, which is why CreaCon recommends using it with the Scout instead of whatever bike trailer you happen to be using right now.
Although the Scout is marketed as an all-you-need camper for bikepacking, there’s no doubt that it offers only basic comforts. After all, this is a camper that you can tow with your e-bike – hoping it would pop up into some kind of luxurious camper villa is ridiculous and unrealistic.
Photo: CreaCon
With that in mind, perhaps the price tag is the biggest surprise here and not necessarily of the pleasant kind: the smallest camper, the Compact model, costs €4,400 ($5,322 at today’s rate exchange) alone. You can also get it as a bundle with the Tough trailer for €5,980 ($7,232). The larger Center version is a tad more expensive, at €6,580 ($7,958) if you buy it with the trailer, while the Comfort bundle is expected to retail for €6,980 ($8,441) when it becomes available.
Add accessories, like the waterproof canvas sheets to make the closed entryway, solar-powered accessories, and telescoping support poles for the awning, and you’re looking at a hefty bill. The argument “you can buy a decent used car for this kind of money,” often used as a comparison for premium e-bikes, would hold water in this instance as well. Then again, whether you can put a price on the sense of freedom you get while bikepacking is entirely up to each and every one of us.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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