B+ motorhomes
I just bought a Trail Lite B+ 211s with 8.1 Chevy engine. This is my fifth motorhome (others range from an old 20' Vagabond, and three Winnegagos, from 19 to 32'. This vehicle is fantastic. I am...
Forum Discussion
just back from a local 2 nite camping trip to crooked creek rec area near mamou, la - a very nice parish (county) campground. for the first time (I think) we averaged 12 mpg with our 6.0 chevy 213 TL. we had a cool front and did not run the dash AC.
after some bantering with the class B owners, I studied our B+ and did some thinling of why we bought our TL and how it compares with B and C class rigs.
when we got our 1st two dogs 7 years ago, we saw the need for a way to travel and not be worried about a hotel refusing us at the end of a long travel day, not to mention the hassles of unload/loading in and out of room. martha drives (I am legally blind), and I REALLY was focused on the compact class B units.
we searched the web and eben traveled to sportsmobile in austin and stahmann's RV in new braunfels, tx to look at the class B vans (as well as chinook and isata). we are both pretty tall, and no matter how much I rationalized the driveability advantage over the space limits of the B, the chinooks and starflytes pointed to a more practical direction for us, but the $$ effect was too much.
after a few more years of looking at compact TT (drove by casita trailer factory in rice,tx) and back and forth pros and cons of all different RV classes, a trip to the new local campingworld where a gulfstream 22 ft BT cruiser was on display sort of created a synthesis of ideas for us:
- compactness, but complete interior that felt like a small motel room with pretty decor
- though not as outwardly compact as a B, I had come to reason that the TL and BT cruiser style B+ rigs were not all that bad for maneuvering, since my van transport for disabled non-drivers was a similar sized class C bus, and ladies zipped these things around baton rouge all day, everyday - they said they liked to drive the rigs
- after following this forum and remembering most of what Daniel C. had said, we called blanchards trailer sales and ordered a TL 213 sight unseen (we had seen some TL's along the way). chose TL over BT cruiser based on price and familiarity thru this forum - chose blanchards for good service (never needed, so far!)
i'm not sure why i am saying all this now, but it seems that all the recent resurgence of hoopla over RV classes has weighed on my engineer brain, and some solution to the fuzziness seems available, if not immediate. before they started stretching the TL and BT cruisers beyond their chinook-rialta-starflyte-born_free 21 ft lengths into huge 28 ft slide units that are clearly a class C in function and intent, the label B+ meant something - it filled a niche.
at least that is how we experienced it.
after some bantering with the class B owners, I studied our B+ and did some thinling of why we bought our TL and how it compares with B and C class rigs.
when we got our 1st two dogs 7 years ago, we saw the need for a way to travel and not be worried about a hotel refusing us at the end of a long travel day, not to mention the hassles of unload/loading in and out of room. martha drives (I am legally blind), and I REALLY was focused on the compact class B units.
we searched the web and eben traveled to sportsmobile in austin and stahmann's RV in new braunfels, tx to look at the class B vans (as well as chinook and isata). we are both pretty tall, and no matter how much I rationalized the driveability advantage over the space limits of the B, the chinooks and starflytes pointed to a more practical direction for us, but the $$ effect was too much.
after a few more years of looking at compact TT (drove by casita trailer factory in rice,tx) and back and forth pros and cons of all different RV classes, a trip to the new local campingworld where a gulfstream 22 ft BT cruiser was on display sort of created a synthesis of ideas for us:
- compactness, but complete interior that felt like a small motel room with pretty decor
- though not as outwardly compact as a B, I had come to reason that the TL and BT cruiser style B+ rigs were not all that bad for maneuvering, since my van transport for disabled non-drivers was a similar sized class C bus, and ladies zipped these things around baton rouge all day, everyday - they said they liked to drive the rigs
- after following this forum and remembering most of what Daniel C. had said, we called blanchards trailer sales and ordered a TL 213 sight unseen (we had seen some TL's along the way). chose TL over BT cruiser based on price and familiarity thru this forum - chose blanchards for good service (never needed, so far!)
i'm not sure why i am saying all this now, but it seems that all the recent resurgence of hoopla over RV classes has weighed on my engineer brain, and some solution to the fuzziness seems available, if not immediate. before they started stretching the TL and BT cruisers beyond their chinook-rialta-starflyte-born_free 21 ft lengths into huge 28 ft slide units that are clearly a class C in function and intent, the label B+ meant something - it filled a niche.
at least that is how we experienced it.
