Originally Posted by
fuzz2050
If you don't mind a compromise, you can work out a gear system that does a pretty good job hanging or on the ground, without much of a weight sacrifice.
You have to forgo an underquilt, and sleep on a sleeping pad for insulation while in the hammock, and while this setup isn't ideal, it' still pretty comfy. If you carry
a separate tarp, and a
light weight pole or two (or just rely on found objects), then you can set up the same tarp as a fly over the hammock and a pretty bomber ground shelter as well.
So long as your insulation works for both applications (a sleeping pad and a wide enough quilt) then the only item that doesn't do double duty is the hammock itself. If you have one with an integrated bug net, you can set it up as a bivy under your tarp, or you can carry something like
this bug bivy.
These are good thoughts. I don't like a pad in my hammock, so when I was worried about sleeping on the ground, I carried a separate pad, but I used it so seldom, that I gave up on it on the last trip and decided that I would sleep on the hard ground if it came to that. But if there had been a possibility of cold weather, then ground + no pad could have been very uncomfortable. I did have a poncho that I might use as a ground cloth underneath the hammock, just to keep me dry and keep the hammock from getting damaged, but it never came to that.
Seems like you would want some kind of bug netting whether in the hammock or out of it, so probably best to find a way to make your hammock netting do double duty. Because my hammock and netting are one, using it as a bivy makes sense, but with separate components, I guess you just want to make sure the netting can function on the ground, too.
For poles, if I wasn't planning on spending many days on the ground, that seems like it might be overkill. At most you might have one pole and use your bike for the other end. For my part, I use a ClickStand, so I figure with my bike at one end and my ClickStand at the other, I could make a workable, if short, shelter for the night.