You might want to check out Arrowhead Equipment, they make a WBRR-specific UQ at a very reasonable price. It's Climashield based rather than down and seems to pack pretty small.Originally Posted by zukiguy
You might want to check out Arrowhead Equipment, they make a WBRR-specific UQ at a very reasonable price. It's Climashield based rather than down and seems to pack pretty small.
I had an old foam mattress about 3-4 inches tall. I cut it to roughly the width of the RR and sewed the cover to fit. I don't take it with me when I go camping, but in the backyard i just lay it in the hammock and it is a nice, soft, swinging bed for summer naps.
I have an REI air rail pad, with an R value of 4.8. It's warm and comfortable, but narrow (23" at widest point - shoulders). I have to be very deliberate when changing my position in the hammock, or I'll get cold arms/legs. For this reason, I usually use an UQ.
Lots of people like pads though. You just have to try it out for yourself and see what you like.
My Air Rail was free from my job, and on the next gift, I think I'll go for the long/wide version to see if that works better for me.
My other gripes with a pad, are that I can't use my lazy slug tube, and rolling it back up in the woods is nowhere near as easy as it is on the nice dry floor of my house.
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The RR - as well as the JRB bridge - do well with pads because you don't sleep on a diagonal. This not only reduces some fiddle factor, but allows you to use long pads which will typically affect the lay in a regular hammock since they ride up the ends. I for this reason tried the RR because I wanted to use my Exped downmat. I found the thickness of that pad set me up too high in the hammock, and made the rigid sides come into play with my knees more than they otherwise would have - as well as increasing tippiness.
I think if I were going to try a bridge again - and the only reason I would do so is to better utilize a pad - I would take 24" reflectix and use it as my pad - one layer for mild weather, two layers (folded with duct tape) for cold weather.
"I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe... ?"
- Kate Chopin
I use the WB UQ for the RR and it is great - full coverage and it is cut so when installed there is no compression of the loft. I still use a UQP (or a sock) but that's just me.
If I had to minimize things and there was a chance I might have to go to ground (no trees at higher elevations), then I might use a pad that I could also use on the ground. But an UQ is my first choice.
An Exped synmat 9 LW is all I use with my RR. R-6 value and its 3 1/2 inches thick, which is the reason I don't put it into the pad pocket, when its fully inflated I think it might put too much stress on both the hammock and the pad. So I lay it on top, it fits completely length and width of the RR. And when I lay on my side with 3 1/2 in of softness under me...sweet.
It does tend to make me lay higher than the sides of the hammock, which I like. No tippiness, i don't think I could flip if I tried. When on my back, I can spread my arms out straight out from my shoulders and not hit the sides of the hammock. Being 5"8 and 160lbs, even when Im on my side in partial fetus mode, no part of me hangs over the side of the hammock.
Last edited by outdoorsguy; 12-11-2015 at 19:50.
I use a exped downmat 9 LV and i did feel, that made lay to high and it was to tippi for me, and i woke up in the midle of the night with Hammock all most on it's side with half of me in the Hammock and the rest of me on the moskito net.
I dont have a UQ made specific for the RR yet, i only have a DD UQ and i haven't tried on the RR yet, so i can't tell how well it works or fit on the Hammock
In general, the bridge hammock shape is different enough from a typical gathered end hammock that an underquilt designed to fit a gathered end isn't going to be a great fit for a bridge hammock, although it may work in a pinch.
My sense of it is that the tippiness issue is very subjective, and may depend on the individual's size and shape and tolerance for getting close to tipping, in addition to the height of the pad and where it is located (between the double layers vs. on top, etc.). Some pads, when only partially inflated, will have better insulation values than other pads (that bottom out).
I just got a WBRR a few weeks ago, and so far have spent 3 nights in it in the backyard trying to get a feel for it. It's my first hammock.
I already had a couple of pads, so I'm trying to see how much mileage I can get out of those before I fork out the dough for an UQ.
The first two nights I slept in it, low temps were 60* and 43*. On both of those nights, I only used my Thermarest RidgeRest SOlite pad (R value = 2.8). Mine is a large, so it's 25" wide, which makes it fit very nicely in between the double layers of my hammock. It was plenty warm for those temps, no issues there.
Last Friday it got down to 23*, so in addition to my SOlite pad, I also used a half-inflated Thermarest NeoAir Venture (R value = 1.8, so total R value of both combined would be 4.6). I slid it also between the double layers, and I put in on top of the SOlite pad to see if it was more comfortable. It was, and I ended up sleeping for 10 hours that night. HOWEVER, a few things about the NeoAir + SOlite combo:
#1 - my NeoAir is only "regular" sized, so it's only 20" wide....which is not as wide as the hammock.....which means that it's prone to shift around.
#2 - the next time I do this double-pad thing, I think I'm going to inflate the NeoAir even less than last time. There was a definite "puffiness" feeling that, while obviously not uncomfortable, still felt a little weird to me.
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