Once again Adventure Cycling's Bike Travel Weekend rolled around. Gorgeous weather this year with a middle of the night thunderstorm on Thursday and light showers on Saturday evening and night. Spent three nights in the new Chameleon Cloud71. A few random thoughts on the Chameleon Cloud71, and then some pics.
1) This is one of the most comfortable GE hammocks I've owned. I think it has to do with the stretch in the Cloud71 fabric. Most GEs I've had to length the ridge line to find the sweet spot. Not with this hammock as it seems the fabric and design does not result in calf ridge and yet provides excellent support for my legs without knee hyper-extension that I usually cure by lengthening the ridge line. Three great nights of comfortable sleep, sans the trips to the bush.
2) As someone noted in a thread about the Chameleon Cloud71 there is considerable sag while sitting in the hammock during entry or preparing for exiting. To me that means the hammock needs to be sag closer to the ground so that your feet are able to touch the ground and take the weight off behind the knees. The sag factor with the Cloud71 also means the hammock needs to be hung higher than for other hammocks.
3) I won't consider having anything other than a Double Layer. But the DL design needs some improvement as on several occasions the zipper sucked up the outer layer. This caused panic because I had visions of a tear starting in the fragile fabric when zipping or fixing the snagged up bottom layer. I learned to put tension on the bug net to stretch the fabric and prevent the out layer from getting sucked up into the zipper. But this needs to be designed better so that the outer fabric is safely away from the zipper, e.g. like the outer layer being sewn into bias tape or something similar in design.

Lastly, it was another opportunity to utilize version two of my DIY bike trailer built from an Bob Ibex and a Burley Kazoo (or Piccolo). Works even better than my previous incarnation as I can quickly break it down and stow it in the Tacoma bed. Plus this one uses the aluminum Burleys and aluminum tubing, and therefore, is lighter.

PS: one of the ladies is 83 and the group of three traveled 28 miles from Missoula for their Bike Travel Weekend trip.

BikeTravelWeekend04042021_0.jpg
BikeTravelWeekend04042021_17.jpg
BikeTravelWeekend04042021_14.jpg