The Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy is a teeny tiny bivvy bag for camping when weight and pack size are of the utmost importance.

Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy

Ideal for: Ultralightweight backpacking overnighters, fastpacking, bikepacking

Not suitable for: Multi-day backpacking trip, thru-hiking, camping in bad weather 

The Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy is a coffin-like bivvy bag that comes with a tiny pack size and a minuscule weight. Robust, waterproof and surprisingly comfortable for the size of the sleeping space, it lends itself really well to fastpacking and bikepacking adventures when getting a relaxing night’s sleep isn’t your highest priority. 

The Good

Ultralightweight

Very easy to pitch

Robust and durable

The Bad

Very expensive

Tiny sleeping space (though it is a bivvy…)

Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy review

If you’re not familiar with the concept of the humble bivvy, they are the smallest shelters out there. They are designed for adventures when weight and pack size are substantially more important than anything else, such as when climbing alpine style or when out on fastpacking or bikepacking escapades where every gram counts. And in a nutshell, they offer about the same amount of room as a coffin: They’re here merely to keep you dry and out of the wind should the weather turn bad in the night — and very little else.

In that sense, bivvies are notoriously uncomfortable places to spend the night. They’re a last resort more than they are a genuine option over a tent. Or are they? With the Three Wire Hooped Bivy, Big Agnes has worked to create a breathable, robust and relatively comfortable coffin-like shelter that is not only super easy to carry but actually reasonably comfortable to sleep in (all things considered).

Weighing in at 694 grams, the Three Wire Hooped bivy is as light as it is small. When strategically packed away, you can get the size of the bivvy down to something resembling a 500 ml Coca-Cola bottle — especially if you pack the pole elsewhere. This makes it one of the smallest and lightest shelters we’ve ever had the privilege of testing at the GBAC. Inside, you get 211 cm of room to spread out lengthways, 61 cm of floor space widthways, which is plenty for getting in a standard (or even large) sleeping pad, and you get 51 cm of headroom (at the head end of the tent). This is more than enough to keep the mesh off your face; just don’t expect to be able to sit up in the Three Wire Hooped Bivy.

As Big Agnes only sells their products directly in the US and Canada, you’ll need to shop around to find the best deal in the UK. As of the time of writing, one could be picked up at Ultralight Outdoor Gear for £339.99, which instantly puts the Three Wire Hooped Bivy at the top end of the price spectrum when you look at other bivvies in this class. The Alpkit Elan, for example, will only set you back less than a third of the Big Agnes offering at £99.99, whereas the Outdoor Research Helium, another popular line in the space, will set you back only £199.99 when bought new. The Rab Ridge Raider, on the other hand, a heavier and more robust option designed for versatile use in wet weather, will set you back almost £100 more than the Big Agnes, coming in at £420.

Our experience using the Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy

We’ve been using the Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy for over a year by the time of writing. And in total, we’ve used it on a handful of adventures up and down the UK, including several multi-day runs across Exmoor and Dartmoor National Park, a bikepacking trip in the north of England, and a fastpacking overnighter through the Thames Valley in autumn. So far, we’ve used it in the wind and the rain, as well as on numerous calm and more comfortable nights, and it’s probably racked up close to 200 miles in the bottom of our pack. And — as far as bivvies go — we remain nothing but impressed by it.

Pack size and weight

Obviously, for a tent like this, the pack size and weight are the reasons you’re going to consider buying one. Which are tiny, by the way. As already mentioned, it weighs 624 grams which is exactly the same as a standard basketball. Unlike a basketball, however, the Three Wire Hooped Bivy can be squashed down to a laughably small pack size. When you pack the poles separately, it squashes down to around the same size as a Nalgene bottle, but you can get it even smaller if you put it in a dry bag. In our experience, this makes it a phenomenal option for fast and light adventures, especially fastpacking or bikepacking.

Pitching and packing away

Featuring a singular pole and 3 peg-out points, the Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy is also incredibly easy to pitch and pack away. The only criticism we have of it, in fact, is the design of the guy lines at the food end of the tent. In order to keep the material elevated and off your feet, you need to run these over something higher than the bivy itself, such as a pair of hiking poles or tie them to a nearby tree. If you simply guy these directly into the ground, the material rests over your feet all night which, aside from being annoying, can also create some additional condensation inside the bivy on colder nights.

Aside from that, however, there really isn’t much else to note. Pitching the Three Wire Hooped Bivy is almost as easy as rolling out a sleeping bag.

Livability

When it comes to livability, this is where bivvy bags show their primary flaw: There is none. That means that you can’t cook from inside this thing, you can’t store kit (maybe a tiny amount at the foot end) and you’ve got nowhere comfortable to wait out a rainstorm should you get caught in one. Seriously, once you’re in this thing, you’re in. And you’re only way out is to sleep out whatever you’re waiting for.

As that is a feature of all bivvy bags, however, the above isn’t meant as criticism aimed at Big Agnes in any way shape or form. In fact, we’d argue quite the opposite: Made out of an ultralight nylon with a 3-layer waterproof membrane, the Three Wire Hooped Bivy actually feels more confidence-inducing than any other bivvy we’ve tried to date. The material feels more like a waterproof jacket than a tent fly, and the condensation inside has been very little, even when we camped in the Three Wire Hooped Bivy in low single-digit temperatures. The length of the bivvy is also impressive, being one of the only bivy bags our 6 ft 7” GBAC member Adrian was able to fit in (and gladly sleep in). This means that for people of average height, you do get some extra room in the foot end to store things that can’t stay outside overnight. You’ll just by no means be able to bring your whole pack inside the Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy with you.

Finally, the design of the Three Wire Hooped Bivy also makes it very easy to use and less claustrophobic than many other bivies we’ve tried. To start with, the door can be opened all the way down the tent, so that when you get inside the bivvy, you can zip it up almost like you’re draping over a blanket. The zippers around the head are also easy to use and never seem to snag, and the high-quality polyester mesh bug net around your head is easy to open and close if you’re trying to escape midges.

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Conclusion

Overall, we really rate the Big Agnes Three Wire Hooped Bivy. It’s tiny, easy to pitch and remarkably comfortable for a bivvy tent of this style, and it’s quickly become our bivvy of choice on fastpacking and bikepacking trips when weight and pack size are more important than anything else. For £400, however, you need to understand that you’re buying a means to an end here. Unlike a tent, a bivvy is designed to get you through the night; comfort is not what they are built for. In that sense, then, this product serves a very specific market and is by no means suitable for people who head outdoors for the camping part of any wild camping experience as much as the hiking/running/cycling part. If you only care about weight and pack size, however, then we think you’ll struggle to find anything better than the Three Wire Hooped Bivy from Big Agnes — but only if you’re willing to part with quite a lot of money.