I recently made a purchase for a BIAS WWM single layer and these are my thoughts and experience:
After many many hours of trolling the forums searching for my perfect hammock, i had almost given up on buying one, and resorted to making yet another hammock. i wanted to have that "stretch" of a thinner hammock without landing on the ground (6'2" 175lbs). I then found a thread entitled "BIAS questions" and started reading. the more i read, the more i liked.
So i exchanged a couple of open forum questions with jbrianb and decided to email him some concerns i had. with expedicious loyalty to the average customer, he replied, answering even the least of intelligent questions that i had for him; all the way down to setting up a paypal account. (i am not so computer saavy)
So instead of asking Mrs. Fish<>< for permission, i told her that i was going to do business with Brian. Luckily it went all well and i got the hammock i have evidently been missing. I ordered, and since it had already been made for another customer,( i guess he wanted a 10.5ft hammock) it shipped quickly.
Before i go on let me say that my only other hammock is a diy 1.9sl measuring at 9.5ft to whipping. It is a very comfortable hammock and i still plan to use it when i am feeling like using my 6x8 tarp.
i am no weight weenie at all, i only wanted a thin material for stretch, and living in HOT guam, i need a little tarp to allow as much breeze as possible. so both hammocks will still have a use for them.
now back to the review...
when i put the hammock on the scale after receiving it, in its shipping box it was only 450ish grams...Now thats some lightweight stuff. when i opened it up and weighed the hammock, straps, slings, and ridgeline inside the stuff sack; it all came in at 357grams. i was extremely pleased with the size and weight this hammock is when stuffed with all the suspension included. my diy is almost 500 grams.
So i had made a deal with my wife that i would watch my son (15months) while she got a shower. Just the 15 to 30 minutes i had to wait for her to be finished was killer! anyways i got it hung on my td stand layed down, and 5 minutes later i was getting hollered at. my son (recovering form a stomach bug) had regurgitated his entire dinner all over her lap...not fun...so an hour later we both had to shower(the wife a second time) and right around midnight my wife asked if i would sleep with her and the son in case he were to do that again, and of course i had no choice but to agree. so i packed it all back up and headed to bed.
The following night my inlaws (whom i actually get along with really well) arrived, and since we only have one bed, a crib and an inflatable bed, left me "bedless". so i happily agreed that i would sleep in the living room. We had gotten home at about 4pm that afternoon from some errands and i decided i wanted to have a few "big boy drinks" namely chugging jinro. it doesn't happen often, that i want to drink, but i wanted to that night for whatever reason. well several hours goes by and right in the middle of my smoking a chicken (inlaws request for their first meal in guam) i ran out of alcohol. So instead of being intelligent, if you even can be after as much as i had, i decided to walk over to my buddy who lives right down the street and intermittently joined their party. i quit drinking about 10.
I finally sobered up for the most part around 2am, when we went to pick up the inlaws from the airport. (wife drove). when i was finally able to hop into my new hammock, it was almost 4am. i slept for about 2 hours when i woke up sick to my stomach. thinking there was no way it was the alcohol, i was wondering if the chicken i had cooked was undercooked but i had smoked it for several hours and it fell apart while cutting it. The sickness continued from saturday night all the way through monday afternoon, so needless to say my first hang wasn't a total success. My son had gotten me sick, and the "big boy drinks" probably didn't help.
2 days ago i finally got the chance to have a nice slumber in my hammock. i now understand after 2 nights in this work of art, why the length of your hammock does make a difference more than width. i can lay almost entirely flat, have room leftover, and even had to make a shock cord extension for my pluq.
The stitching is flawless, the knotty mod is awesome, it is not even crammed into its stuff sack, and the customer service at BIAS is by far the best of any of the said above items. I love this hammock and forsee a great future for this awesome company.
Oh and Brian did all of this while tncamper was out of town. What a swell cottage company! oh the hammocks and accessories are great too!
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