[Closed] Picking Motorhome up at the weekend,

We have four bikes in the garage on a regular basis. Apart from taking off the pedals we just slide them in one at a time. We have bike shrouds for each of them to stop them rubbing against each other. We also pass a thick wire rope through them all and padlock it to the underside of the bed.
We bought ours 5 years ago this week and disappeared to the Alps and Finale for a month. Best thing we have ever bought.
Its all fully alarmed and tracked.
If you are wanting to spend along time off grid then get the biggest solar panel you can on the roof and twin leisure batteries.
Also have a look at Safe fill bottles as a cheap alternative to Calor bottles.

Your posts were a definite inspiration for getting one Tracey

It comes with a solar panel and we’ve had refillable gas bottles fitted, it’s only got one leisure battery fitted, but space for another one, we’ll see how it lasts.

There'll only be two bikes regularly in the garage, so there’s plenty of room to secure them, I’m not sure if my XL rocketmax will fit in with both wheels on

blok pod do some good fork mounts, I'ev just go some for my camper. make sure you get some levelling blocks to allow to square the van up on uneven ground. Apart from that do a short trip first and you'll soon make a list of little things.

We need photos!!

Tip #1... check and remember which side the fuel flap is on and how it opens before entering your first [small] petrol station on fumes.... It's not a fun environment to practice manoeuvring your new van out of the way after blocking the pumps for 5 minutes, with a queue of cars behind and you've still not figured out how to open the flap !!!

Tip #2... keep a water hose and tap connectors (and spares as they go missing) for water tank filling - I was surprised / disappointed that a camping & caravan club site couldn't sell or lend us a connector on our first trip and relied on us borrowing from another camper. Also buy the longer electricity cable - some sites can be quite a distance from ideal pitch to hookup.

Tip #3 - if parked sideways across a steep hill, the top of the motorhome might be leaning downhill and so much closer to any obstacle (a farmhouse roof in my case) than the cab level... check this before driving off / any closer or you might end up with a nice gouge in your van (and damaging a building).

Enjoy.

Buy a decent screw on water filling cap and tap adaptors x a few as you will leave one somewhere !
I our ‘garage’ I put down interlock foam flooring and use bike shrouds so we get 3 bikes in with pedals on. It’s a Swift 695 minus the bottom bunk.
Don’t take too much sh1te, less is more.
Get bog chemicals and cleaners etc and leave them in the van.
Have a mental checklist before you move off, don’t put heavy stuff up high !!
Enjoy. We’ve had loads of campervans and rented larger ones before we bought one and it’s great fun to have a bit more soace

Good stuff. You'll have a blast. Get some campsites booked....they're booking up really fast at the moment so availability will be limited already.You've got it now, the key is to use it. Too many caravans and motorhomes get bought and sit in fields or on drives getting naff all use. My dad's just bought a motorhome so I'm looking forward to him getting over the initial buzz of owning one before getting bored so I can start using it!

Lovely van mate.

Print off the height and width of the van and stick it to the sun visor.

Download the truma App. Miles easier than using the control panel.

Pack plenty of fuses especially if you have a elec drop down bed.

Go somewhere close to home for your first trip. If its a brand new van there will doubtless be faults you find on the first trip.

I have a bike rack on the back of mine rather than get them in the garage.

Get a tracker fitted if not already installed. Disklock are really good too.

Buy the best set of levelling ramps you can get. Milenco quottros are good. I gave up though and got hydraulic levellers installed.

Mirror guards are cheap and well worth fitting. In addition to protecting the mirror's they make the Van look wider to oncoming traffic. I have these :- https://www.milenco.com/products/accessories/mirrors-protectors/mirror-protectors-white-long-arm-1

Dont trust sat nav.

I have a check list of things to check before setting off in the Van. Incredibly useful as I always forget to do something.

I have nothing to add other than that looks like an excellent bit of kit! What a machine!

Great prices of kit, especially now. We had one for years, including a 6 month surf trip. I think I'll rally miss it this year...

This is what I did for carrying bikes in our garage:

@epicsteve - was it you so had their van damaged in a lockup fire?

We use these to support our bikes;

https://www.merlincycles.com/delta-bike-hitch-pro-103368.html

The bolt through option comes with all the adaptors you need for all standards. They’re bolted to our Moho floor. We also use a ground anchor & beefy chain.

Also check out motorhome fun forum for heaps of advice on everything motorhome related.

Don’t forget adaptors to use abroad to fill up your gas bottles

@epicsteve – was it you so had their van damaged in a lockup fire?

It was indeed. Just cosmetic stuff though, and all sorted now via my insurance.

This is the carnage it survived (all except one of the caravans and motorhomes before it were totally destroyed, and the other had a fair bit of damage) - we were very lucky:

This is what it looked like before getting fixed (although barring the window and the indicator that the fire brigade broke it was still useable):

And this was it after being fixed (although we did a few trips before it went in for repairs):

BTW this is how we typically use the garage in ours now:

Don’t forget adaptors to use abroad to fill up your gas bottles

We switched to a Gaslow refillable LPG system in ours and that was great when we did a 2 month tour round Europe.

Great to see you got it sorted. I remember the thread at the time

👍

Very nice Zero