Biking and hiking and scouting

[ScrogDawg]

My son is fairly new to scouting which means I'm back in scouting too. The boys are big into hammock camping so I'm looking to learn. There is a hard core group that will hammock all winter... I'm not sure I'm ready for that! We're in Iowa and the temps easily drop below freezing and beyond.

My other passion is cycling. A new craze of bike packing is taking off and I would like to use a hammock as a way to catch some good sleep in the middle is multi day events.

I've already been poking around and learning a lot. My son and I are putting plans together to start building a turtle dog stand. I'm looking forward to more ideas!

[cmc4free]

Welcome! For bike-packing and for scout outings, depending on your budget and such, the Tensa4 stand may be of great interest to you. It is likely the lightest and most portable commercially available hammock stand. I spent the night out in mine last night!

If portability and lightness are not of utmost priority, you could look into making a DIY tensahedron stand out of EMT conduit, fence rail, or other materials. There are several threads here that document how folks have made them, and some can be made for under 20 bucks.

[ChrisJHC]

Not sure you need a stand for bikepacking - surely if there’s nowhere to hang from, you just ride a few more kilometres until you find somewhere.

Lots of other reasons to have a stand!

[KnotAProblem]

Hidey ho, neighbor! It seems we likely have a few overlapping circles here in Mid-Iowa. Our troop does a lot of camping and most of the adults and many of the scouts are into hammocking too. The quest for the perfect hang can be as deep of a rabbit hole as you want. While I do my best to pair down all the fancy do-dads, the older I get it seems I tend to land on the side of comfort.

Good luck on your quest and let us know what you come up with as you go. Heck maybe we'll run into one another at camp.

[ScrogDawg]

The stand is an experiment for the scout outings when trees can be in high demand. You're right that when bike packing I'll be looking for the lightest load and likely will sell the most favorable sure.

[ScrogDawg]

Good to see fellow scouts and neighbors on here. I am learning that if there is a need there is a way to fill out... And empty my pocket book. The boys can be very resourceful without spending a lot of money. I'm definitely trying to find the balance of comfort and cost.

[Adabiviak]

A new craze of bike packing is taking off and I would like to use a hammock as a way to catch some good sleep in the middle is multi day events.

I've been bike packing since '86*, using a hammock for this since 2005. At some level, it's as simple as it sounds... put your camping gear on the bike and go. On another level, it wasn't until literally last year that I feel that I've otherwise "perfected" this (where improvements have returns so small that I don't sweat them), but so much of this depends on so many factors (many of which are personal) that it might be easier to start with your situation (what kind of bike, what's the terrain like, what's the weather like, tree availability, how long are most of your trips likely to be, how spartan do you take your camping/riding, that sort of thing).

I ride in the Sierra Nevadas. It can get cold here, but not like the deep north (specifically - temperature maintenance tends to be the main focus of one's sleeping gear, then weight reduction; on a bike, volume is a consideration too). The terrain here can also be incredibly rugged, but rarely so much when I'm away from "home" (specifically - what kind of bike do you have/need/want, which will determine at some level how much you can comfortably pack).


*My start in bikepacking happened when I was exploring the local mountains on my old BMX bike (as kids in the 80s were wont to having), and I stumbled upon a little abandoned dome tent. I'm 9 years old, five miles into undeveloped forest here with my dog as my only companion. Previously, a friend had given me a little saddle bag for the bike, into which I would put some food and a cassette player (because the concept of "personal portable music" was new at the time), so during the process of trying to figure out how to comfortably carry this tent out, it hit me that, between the tent and the saddle bag, I might be able to spend the night outside, but instead of setting up in the backyard with our usual gigantic family tent (like usual), I could ride somewhere and set up on my own with this little thing (I had never seen a tiny dome tent before). Later in high school, I became friends with someone who was also into this sort of thing, but who was working on his own bag designs (eventually becoming Carousel Design Works). The rest is a boring-if-you're-not-me story about incremental improvements in both bike and camping technology, and the adventures thereon culminating in a recent month-long bikepacking trip through Japan with literally zero planning other than, "sun's going down, where do you want to sleep tonight?" (though we did book a hostel at the last minute for the night of our arrival so we could try to shake off some jet lag and assemble our bikes from the flight, but you get the idea).

[ScrogDawg]

That's awesome. There are a couple ideas for bike packing that I think would be awesome. One is the BC epic 1000. It runs across Canada and totally self supported. Some go for the hotel option, but I would hope the hammock opens a lot more options.

[Lebreton]

Scout camping and hammocks go great together good hanging

[CaptainGravity]

Not very bike-friendly, but a tensahedron stand built from four 8' pioneering poles and some cordage is a good way to combine lashing skills & hammocking & lack of trees.