IS THIS THE BEST 270 DEGREE AWNING ON THE MARKET EXPLORE TIPS- THE BUSH COMPANY 270 XT AWNING

G'day everyone, welcome back to another episode of Explorer Tips, Tricks, and Reviews. One of probably my most asked about products, it is the Bush Company XT 270 degree awning. And then in the next video, we're gonna go into the Bush Company Alpha Rooftop Tent. Now look, straight up, full disclosure, I am sponsored by the Bush Company, but look, I've been running so many different awnings and rooftops throughout the year, but let's talk about awnings. So, initially I started off with, I was running the ARB, your simple pull-out awning off the side of your car. I had probably five or six different brands of them, whether it was on the side of my Navara Patrol, or even on my camper trailer, my home-built camper trailers. Look, they're a good product, you know, whether you buy a $100 one or a $300 one, there's only small differences between them. At the end of the day, they are a little bit difficult with one person to set up, they give you limited coverage, and of course, you need to have the poles down and the ropes on. So then, the 270 degree awning came out, and of course, my eyes lit up when I seen it, and I've probably had about three, maybe four different brands of 270 degree awnings. Now the first one I got, I was so bloody excited, had it on the truck, went up the bloody beach, and before I could even get all the poles out, I basically had the whole thing flipped over the car, on the roof. So, to be completely honest with you, I pretty much hated 270 degree awnings, because they were too hard to use, too flimsy, and you know, you got five or six poles that you had to set up with ropes, and I found that I just did not use my awning anywhere near as much as I used the simple roll-out awning. Your sort of two and a half by two and a half is the main one that I used to use. So I actually went back to the two and a half by two and a half standard pull-out awning, until I was doing more and more touring, and if you guys have been following me for a while, I did go into the Alucab gear. So I bought them, rooftop tent and awning set up, and absolutely punished them for years. Alucab were a great product, no if, buts or maybes, and that was the first time I experienced a fully freestanding 270 degree awning, and I absolutely loved it. Now, I had a massive trip coming up where I was basically gonna live out of the truck for eight weeks. My rooftop and all the gear basically needed a freshen up. So that's when I went and seen Dean, and basically told me about these products that he was working on, and that he had coming out in probably the next six to 12 months. Look, it was all the small, tiny details that could have been improved on some of the previous gear that I was using. So I teamed up with Dean, and I ran his 270 degree gullwing awning first, and I had the Black Series rooftop tent, which I did eight weeks out of, and I'll probably do a separate review video on those products as they are still available. But today, I'm gonna get into what I believe is the best 270 degree awning on the market. It is the 270 XT. Let's kick it off from the outside visually. It's not too bulky. Some of them are absolutely massive, bulky bags. I liked it. You can put everything away without having to make sure it's rolled up super tight, but then also it's not overly bulky on the side as well. It's 2.3 meters long, and one downside, it is heavy. It's 27 kilos. But look, it's well and truly worth the compromise. You can't have strength without having weight, unfortunately, but I will get into just how strong it is and how he has saved weight. But you've got the bag. It's a 460 gram Ripstock Poly Canvas. Much prefer this style bag than any PVC bag. This is definitely gonna breathe a lot better. And look, at the end of the day, you do just put your awnings away, sometimes still wet or a bit of dew from the morning, so that allows it to breathe that little bit better. It's got good quality zips, YKK zips. Now look, if you're wondering why mine's actually pretty badly scratched up, just to give you an idea of how tough this bag is, I was doing a bit of filming for BFGoodrich up at Glasshouse Mountains, and I basically put, the truck would have gone on its side, except it leant up against a tree, and I basically scraped all the way down the side of the bag and then popped off. So the fact that that doesn't have a hole in it, straight off the bat, is pretty bloody impressive. I've only had this on this vehicle now for about six months, but trust me, I've used the absolute hell out of it. So let's get into it. Simple zip. Then you've got two Velcros that basically hold the bag together. That pulls down. And then basically all you do is you grab this section of the rope, and you walk it around the back of the vehicle. Now with my setup, I just clip that on there. Tension. And look, that's it. So you're talking, realistically, 30 seconds, and you are fully freestanding, no poles, no ropes. So let's talk construction. Straight away, up top, you're running a 380 gram polycotton ripstock canvas, just a little bit lighter weight than the bag itself. Now I know that Dean double waterproofs these, and then this is another really cool feature, which you can see up on top. It then gets a UV protection coating put on top. So basically what that does is just allows that sun to reflect off a little bit nicer and keeps it extra cool underneath your awning. Now, all the way around, it does have a 40 or 50 mil Velcro strip. So you can buy a wall kit for this, which allows you to fully enclose this, and then a couple of pegs down, and you've got your own whole little bunkered room. Another cool feature with having the walls that I know you'll be able to do is you can take that wall here, bring it into the pole, and that wall here, bring it into the pole, and that'll actually give you a little triangle room here if you want somewhere to get changed or anything like that, which is, you know, anyone that knows rooftop tent life, sometimes you're looking for a change room. So that's important to note. Now, it doesn't come with any poles whatsoever. It is fully freestanding. However, it does come with a bag with some ropes and some pegs. So if it does look like it's gonna storm, you can simply chuck a couple of ropes on. Look, not really for the wind. If I know it's gonna be extremely heavy rain, although it is a truss-style design, which gives you that natural fall, sometimes I will just throw a rope on here so that in that heavy rain, it does eliminate any pooling. Now, let's get straight in talking about the design of the frame. So it is an aircraft-grade aluminium that Dean basically got specifically made, and it's that truss-style design, like the roof of your houses, that sort of design that gives you that structural integrity and also gives you that natural fall as well. So there's not too many bloody awnings that you can walk up to and start hanging off. Obviously, this is mounted up to the rooftop tent, so it does have 316 marine-grade stainless brackets, absolute monsters. And essentially, this thing will flex all day. You'll probably end up ripping some bolts out of the rooftop tent before the awning itself will actually break. Now, it's important to note that you don't have to mount it to a rooftop tent. You can mount it to a roof rack system with some bracketry, but that then becomes the weak point. So if it is gonna get over that 30-kilometre winds, you might wanna put a rope on just so that as the awning flexes, it's not gonna break your mounting brackets. But look, it is absolutely tough as nails. It's clean as hell. It looks bloody fantastic. And most of all, it's super practical, which is all you want out of an awning. You want something you can pull up, whip out in 30 seconds. It's a rough price point. I think these come in at about the $1,800 mark, but you're talking like three to four times more that you'd use this awning than your standard pull-out one. If we stop even just for a coffee in the mornings on the side of the road or a little bit of lunch, this comes out. If it starts raining, it comes out nice and quick and easy. You find you use these far more than you'd use any other awning purely because of how quick, fast, and easy they are. If you're doing touring like I was and like I will be when we can get out of here, and you're moving day in, day out, you want something that's gonna be super bloody quick. There's nothing worse than poles and ropes. And I mean, how beautiful does it look with not having any poles and ropes on the ground? There's probably nothing else I can really think of to mention. So let me show you how easy it is to pack up. So you just release the tension, basically everything in reverse. It pretty much puts itself away, to be honest. Give the canvas a little flick out. Now, given the fact that my truck's quite tall, it does make it that little bit harder. This is the other thing I like about it. It doesn't have to be an extremely tight roll. I literally just fold the three corners up, roll it up, grab your Velcro, one Velcro, two Velcro. Look, Velcro's easy. I don't like when you've gotta do different little turnbuckles and those sorts of thing. And look, the bag's big enough that without any real pushing or shoving, she's good. So look, guys, that's basically it. I have been running this one for six months. Absolutely love it. I cannot recommend it high enough. The only downfalls is you pay for what you get. It is at the higher end of the price bracket. It is a little bit heavier than your other ones, but you can see why it is heavy. And look, at the end of the day, the extra weight and the extra cost for the ease of use and the strength, it's a bit of a no-brainer. Anyway, if you've got any other questions, chuck them down below. Happy to answer any of them. I am pretty familiar with a lot of different awnings now. I've used them all, and look, whether I'm sponsored or not, this is 100% the awning that I'd like to have on my truck, and I will have on the new truck. I'll get another one. So the Bush Company, I'll put their links there if you wanna go check them out. By all means, go and have a suss. Anyway, till next time, get out and enjoy the explore life.