Pikes Peak and my Roadtrek 210

We went up Pikes Peak in the early 80's with a 1979 Class B on a Ford E250 chassis with 351 engine. With 3 children and two adults on a long trip we weren't lightly loaded. At the time I asked the young attendant in the booth at the bottom if he thought our rig would be able to make it up. He said no problem. But .......we had it foot to the floor and were barely moving as we neared the top in the then gravel section.On the way up some other vehicles were having difficulty making the grades and that caused us to stop in a line several times. I was afraid we wouldn't have enough power to move if we got bogged down in the sandy switchbacks. We made it to the top, but barely. Coming down they stopped all vehicles for a brake heat check and were pulling over any vehicles they thought should stop and let the brakes cool down. I thought we would be pulled over for sure, but the inspector said the brakes were okay so we continued down in first and second gear. I would let the camper pick up speed, brake hard to slow down and then let the brakes cool till I needed to slow down again.

Today's B's are more powerful and have much more sophisticated engine controls, albeit there will still be a huge power loss as mentioned by the other posters. I think your Roadtrek would do just fine. Watch the temperature gauge as others indicate but I doubt engine heating will be a problem. The air will be cooler as you go up. The engine will cool better in a lower gear. And manually switching gears will keep the transmission cooler as opposed to letting the transmission gear up and down. We won't be doing Pike's Peak again, not because I think our B isn't up to it, but because 30 years later I think we may not be up to it. That's some mighty thin air up there.