headwind15

I have a question for hammock users. If you are touring with a hammock and a tent, I know there are times/ places where one of them is feasible and you use it, and the other one will spending the night in it's bag. I was just wondering which one ends up being used more? I am considering a hammock with bug netting and rain fly, that weighs in at 2.6 lbs, and can also be staked out and used as a bivy tent.

pakeboi

Which hammock are you considering ?

headwind15

The ETROL tent hammock. I am still looking at others.
Do you know anything about them? Any downsides?

pakeboi

Been researching hammocks and that's not one I've heard of .
Here's a couple of links to confuse you .

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/content.php.

pakeboi

https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topic...g/best-hammock

headwind15

F.Y.I. I am looking at a tent hammock with rods that create the hoops so that it can be used as a bivy tent as well. I like the idea of it coming with a built in rain fly that would be hassle free with both applications. I do not like the hammocks with separate tarps as a rain fly. I just came back from touring Colorado using a tent and thought it would be easier if my camp site search was not restricted to just looking for flat smooth ground surfaces.

phughes

On my last two tours, I used the hammock 100 percent of the time, with the exception of one night when I got a hotel. I had set the hammock up as a bivy, but was within 50 feet of some train tracks, which I discovered a train passed every 20 minutes. I packed up and got a hotel.

That being said, I now have a small one person tent. I will most likely take both on my next tour, but I haven't decided. Both are very small. I have a Warbonnet Blackbird for my hammock. It packs small, and is very comfortable.

becnal

I tour with a Hennessy Hammock and I use it every night I’m not sleeping in a hotel when on tour. It’s just too comfortable not to use.

headwind15

I liked your post for two reasons. 1) I am afraid that if I take a hammock, I might get skunked as far as finding two trees (or poles) the right distance apart or strong enough. You saying that you had 100% ability to find trees is comforting.
2) I look at other tourists posts on the crazy guy on a bike website. Since this is the richest/ wealthiest country, the preponderance of the posters on there go to a lot of hotels, and maybe I am reading into your response, but especially with hotel rates going up 50% since 2019, hotels, in my opinion is that they are financial landmines. It was nice to hear from someone who has a strong commitment to camping.

ClydeClydeson

I have a hammock with a bug net cover. https://www.canex.ca/en/snugpak-jung...e-846271001762

I have slept in it three times while camping. If planning on using a hammock I take that into consideration when choosing a campsite, which in Northern Ontario, Canada, is generally not an issue.

For my upcoming tour I think I might only bring my hammock and a self inflating sleeping pad and a tarp and see if I can't rig it up as a bivy with some ropes and sticks and whatnot, should there not be trees available to hang it. This might greatly cut down on my load.

phughes

You can hang it using only one tree and your bike. I am headed to bed right now. I will post details tomorrow.

headwind15

This has got to be the best idea I have seen for a long time, the biggest problem that I have seen for using a hammock is finding two trees (in some places) the right distance apart to use a hammock. Thank You!

zandoval 

Nice ride in West Texas... Huummmm... Let's see... Where to hang my hammock????

phughes

Here is what I wrote the last time I posted this.

I used my bike to hang the hammock using only one tree. You need a good ground anchor, I am using Orange Screws. I will also be getting Boom Stakes from Tensa for rocky ground. I am able to hang off the ground with this method, and I don't have to carry anything I am not already carrying.
These are the same stakes that Tensa uses for their hammocksuspension systems. They will not come out. The Orange Screws I use are good for soft ground, but the Boom Stakes are for rocky ground. Once again, they are made for this type of thing, and won't pull out.

The hammock carabiner is hooked to a soft tie down strap that has loops on both ends. That goes around the seat post, in the example pictured, I may have also ran it through the seat frame where it connects to the post. The tie down straps hook to the seat post. It works surprisingly well, and is much better than using the hammock on the ground.

I used my Click Stand to elevate the tarp line on the bicycle side.

Look at Tensa's site. https://i.imgur.com/ImTwhSK.jpg

Here are their stakes: https://www.tensaoutdoor.com/product/anchors/

veganbikes

I don't generally tour with both. I would kind of check where I am going and places I may stop for the night and see which is most feasible. I know that can change and such but I don't like carrying extra weight. Though I generally tour with my hammock because it is a heck of heap more comfortable and I usually try to find places with trees or benches or some way of holding up my hammock.

I have ENO hammocks and love them. I have the whole One-Link set up that I got around 2012-2013 or so and the only thing I would have changed is getting a SingleNest instead of the Double Deluxe but I now have a SingleNest as well so all is good. The double is just too big for me and I have tried sleeping with someone in it and it didn't work it. Great for maxin' and relaxin' and single sleeping with lots of extra material.

waddo

I'd rather sleep on a bed of nails. Tents are tried and tested through hundreds of years in all kinds of societies and cultures. Apart from on a pirate ship, I cannot see any benefit with a hammock.

phughes

Well, lets see, in a Warbonnet Blackbird, you sleep diagonally across the hammock, which uses a foot box, and extended area on the right end of the hammock for your feet. That means you lie basically flat. You do not have hard ground underneath you. In a tent, o matter the pad, short of an actual mattress, the hammock is easier on my back. The hammock gives as you move, the ground does not.

I found that, unlike what I thought, it isn't the sun waking me in the morning, while camping, it was the fact I was sleeping on the ground. In the hammock, I often sleep later than I do in a tent, unless I set an alarm. On one tour, a guy I rode with for a while, had to actually come to the hammock and wake me since I always slept much later than he did.

Properly hung, and properly designed, a hammock is much more comfortable than sleeping on the ground. Specifically the Blackbird is extremely comfortable. Don't get me wrong, I have tents, and I like them as well, but the hammock is more comfortable by far.

pakeboi

https://www.panthercreekhammocks.com

Expensive , heavy , no included tarp , but still worth a look .
Works as a flat lying hammock or tent .

tcs

Rita Blanca National Grassland:




YMMV.

ClydeClydeson

Just got back from a 10 day trip, 8 nights were spent camping. I think I used the hammock w/bug screen as a ground shelter 4 times, and actually found conveniently placed trees and hammocked four times.

stevepusser

So...no flat ground, or ground covered with goat head thorns/biting ants/roaches/snakes/mud/puddles/pointy sticks/sharp rocks are not situations where a hammock offers a clear advantage? Not to mention that clearing a spot for a tent of all those things damages the soil layer if you're free-camping.

You also can use other items than trees to tether a hammock. Many creative solutions are out there...picnic tables, posts, cars, cracks between boulders....

ClydeClydeson

I should mention, I saw a video somewhere of a person setting up a hammock for camping, and I realized I have been putting my much too tight. For my recent trip I set up as the video suggested and slept much better in the hanging hammock than I did on the ground.

headwind15

One thing I would like to share with my fellow hammockers, is that I take a piece of string when looking for a potential hanging place. I go up to potential trees. the string length is the distance where if the sting can' t make it to the trees' then the trees are too far apart. In other words instead of starting to set my hammock on tree after tree until I find the right distance the string helps me find a suitable distance.

Miele Man

Be aware that some campgrounds do not allow you to tie anything to a tree.

Cheers

staehpj1

I don't particularly care for hammocks, but I will say this. Yes I have toured in places where I haven't seen a tree for days, but I typically camp in small towns in those places because that is where water is available. In those small towns there would be a solid place to hang one end of a hammock, a pole or a railing or something. Even outside of towns there is likely to be a sturdy structure of some kind, a sigh, guard rail, cattle fence, or something will be availble here and ther even if infrequent. So using the bike on the other end would work pretty much every where I have camped even in the plains. or other treeless country. Not an issue for me because I am happy sleeping on the ground in those places, but I really think I could have found a place to camp with a hammock anywhere I have been. It may have meant choosing where I stopped to take advantage of a pole or something if camping out in the boonies.

There have been a few times/places where I have been envious of the hammock users. Those places were either wet soupy swampy ones or places so rocky that there just wasn't a comfy place on the ground. On tour I have always been okay even if not always in perfect conditions and all of these tmes were while backpacking.

Personally I am enough of a minimalist that I would never carry both a tent and a hammock. Different strokes though.