Hi Bells, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I am an avid motorcycle rider and have been riding since I was nine years old.
After retiring in April 2021, my husband and I sold our small ranch in Placerville, California, and became full-time RVers. We travel full time in our forty-foot RV with an enclosed trailer attached to haul our motorcycles. As we travel, I document our adventures, both with the RV and the motorcycles on my YouTube channel, “Bells Rides Moto”.
So far, in the last six months, we have crossed the United States three times. This year, we are slowing down a bit, staying locations of interest longer to explore the area more in-depth before moving on to the next.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Selling your home and moving is always a challenge, but when you lived in one place for twenty-five years, it’s an even bigger hurdle. With the full-time RVing, there have been a couple of obstacles to overcome.
During the first month, I was a crew member and rider of “The World Record Poker Run” to beat the Guinness Record for the longest motorcycle poker run. The plan was for my husband to follow in the RV for my support vehicle and sleeping accommodations. On the second day of the eight-day challenge, my husband got a flat tire.
Normally, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but with Covid, the supply chain affected his ability to get another tire. Ultimately, caused me to leave without him and try to get hotel reservations along the way,
We’ve been impressed with Bells Rides, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
What I’m most proud of is a charity motorcycle ride (The Blue Ride) I host every year during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Each year we honor a fallen law enforcement officer, 100% of the proceeds raised donated to non-profit organizations.
During the 2022 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the 3rd Annual Blue Ride, we are honoring El Dorado County Deputy Austin Ramsey (EOW October 14, 2021). Deputy Ramsey was a U.S. Army Ranger and a combat Veteran who silently suffered from PTSD. The proceeds of this year’s Blue Ride will go to Operation Good To Go, a nonprofit organization that helps veterans who suffer from PTSD or who are homeless.
I also have a web-based “Motorcycle and RV Gear” store, www.bellsrides.com. The products on my website I have either used personally or have done research with other users of the product.
In the last six monthsof full-time RVing, we have learned a lot about our RV and about RVing in general. In this article, I will share the top six things we learned. Possibly, it will help you with your full-time RV adventure.
6. With the rising cost of fuel,you need all the tips and tricks you can add to your tool belt. We use multiple tools depending on our location and which fueling stations are available in that location. Our first choice is to use our TSD Logistics account. You are probably wondering what the heck is a TSD Logistics account? For diesel rigs, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. TSD Logistics is a trucking company,
That thought of an excellent way for them to save on fuel then pass it along to its members. The more fuel trucking companies buy, the bigger the discount. The size of the company’s fleet limits the trucking company on how much fuel they buy. This is where we as RVers come in. The more members who join, (adding to the size of the fleet) the more the trucking company saves on fuel, and the more we save as RVers. https://www.tsdlogistics.com/services/fuel-program/
To locate truck stops with the best discounts, we use the Open Road app–
Where it gets a little tricky is their process for joining and possibly why people would be uncomfortable to join. Part of the approval process is to provide TSD Logistics with your social security and a bank account. They run a credit check similar to any credit card application (this is not a credit card). They also use your social security number in the event they can’t collect payment. Your bank account information is for ACH for purchasing fuel. (application link)https://apply.myopenroads.com/
***** PLEASE PUT ANDREW WISHART / BELLS RIDES IN REFERRED BY SECTION*****
It sounds scary, but it really isn’t. Upon membership approval, they issue you an EFS payment card.
So essentially they pay for your fuel upfront, then they automatically collect the funds from your bank account minus the discount you receive as a member. This being said, we were still uncomfortable with a company having access to our primary bank account. So we opened a small checking account that is strictly for fueling the rig. It’s electronically connected to our major account for ease of transfer of funds.
When using the Good Sam card at Flying J or Pilot, the discount on fuel is $.08 cents per gallon and $.05 cents per gallon for gasoline. Which is nowhere near the $.28cents per gallon at Loves or as much as $.32 cents per gallon at Petro or TA, through the TSD Logistics account.
For up to $.20 cents per gallon savings at the pump, the Dino Pay app for Sinclair stations–https://www.sinclairoil.com/customers/dinopay-appYou can use the Dino Pay App for gasoline or diesel rigs.
All thediscount programs may not seem like much savings, but they really add up. For instance,a hundred gallons of fuel with TSD is as much as $32.00 savings. And with crossing the United States nearly three times in the last six months, those are hefty savings.
5. The importance of knowinghow your rig is supposed to perform can’t be expressed enough. For instance, your rig’s alignment can affect your fuel efficiency and chew up tires. When we first purchased our rig, as soon as we got her home we had to replace the front tires, shocks, and have it aligned. The shop we took her to didn’t do all four corner alignments but could do measurements and said the back was within the spec tolerance. Both my husband and I had our doubts because the adjusting bolt was backed out. However, we took him for his word, as it rode beautifully after getting the front end dealt with. After we were on the road for a little time, I had an occasion to follow my husband and noticed the rig was crabbing down the highway by as much as four inches to the right. Luckily, we were only moving the rig from one park to another within the same town. We immediately started our search for an alignment shop for big rigs familiar with our type of chassis. We found a shop in Sioux Falls called Dakota Alignment. Not only were they knowledgeable about our rig, but they could get us in within a couple of days and they were very affordable.
4. Here is one I used as a truck driver. Before leaving your driveway, take an actual measurement of the highest point of your rig. This will take two people and a long straightedge, like a six-foot level. Put the level on the highest point of your rig and hold it level. The second person measure from the ground to the bottom of the level.
Next, if you don’t have a GPS that you can program your rigs height, weight, and length, I highly recommend getting one. When I retired, I brought my trucker GPS with me in the RV. It is a Garmin DezlOTR 700
is an older model, but it still takes online updates. You can get one at any truck stop and by adding your rig’s specs, you are less likely to be routed with low height or weight restrictions.
3. Another helpful item from my truck I brought with me when I retired was my CB (Citizen Band) radio. Tiffin manufacture built our rig pre-wired with power and the antenna. We just needed to mount the CB and upgrade the antenna with a long-range antenna. I also purchased the antenna from a truck stop. Most truck stops have a decent selection of CB accessories.
As long as your CB has a decent signal strength and antenna, you can communicate with your travel buddies without relying on a cellular service. All you need to remember is not to use the emergency channel (9) or the channel truckers use (19) for reporting traffic issues. Which is another reason to have a CB in your rig. It comes in handy when there is a big slowdown on a highway. You can communicate with the truckers ahead of you to find out the cause for the slowdown and what lane is blocked. When your RV is 70 feet long, it can take a while to change lanes in heavy traffic.
2. This one probably seems like a no-brainer, but worth mentioning just in case you may try to run as light as possible. I mean, it’s great in theory to run light, but you must pick what you will sacrifice. Some folks only put on the bare minimum of water, but for us, we keep our freshwater topped off. We learned this the hard way when we had a flat, and it took two days to get roadside service out to the RV. We have great roadside services (Yes, that is services, as in plural) we have multiple roadside coverage. Our RV insurance has roadside coverage, but our favorite is AAA Premier. We originally had the basic AAA for our cars but upgraded to AAA Premier for our motorcycles because they have the best towing for motorcycles. As luck has it, the AAA Premiere has great roadside service for RVs too.The AAA operator who took the call for the flat on the RV was incredible. She worked tirelessly to find someone who had our tire and someone who would come out on a Sunday to change the tire. This leads me to our number ONE thing we learned in the last six months.
1. If you are thinking about going full time in your RV and traveling a lot, take this one into consideration. Also, learning this lesson from the flat tire. We now do everything we can not travel on the weekend. In fact, we try very hard to only travel Monday through Thursday.
We avoid Friday travel days because the weekend warriors are out in full force and at top speed, trying to get to their destination as fast as possible. We avoid Saturday and Sunday travel because it can be very difficult to get a service provider on the weekends. And Sunday we avoid at all costs because the weekend warriors are all trying to get back home in time to get back to work, which would slow down response time even more if you could find a service provider at all.
Thank you for stopping by. If you have questions please contact me.
My husband and I are the over-kill kings on most things we do, if a 5000lb axle is plenty big then a 10,000lb is for us. Why should Roadside Assistance be any different?
Back in the day when we were just starting out with our 1997/98 26 foot Nomad bunk model fifth wheel, we didn’t worry about roadside assistance. To be completely honest, I don’t even think it was part of our thought process. We had insurance on our tow rig and at the time it was all that was required.
We took our little Nomad on our honeymoon up the coast of California to Port Angeles, WA and the pot holes were just as bad back then as they are now. On our way home we skirted into Nevada through Reno to stay at a campground between Reno and Carson City. As we were pulling in to the campground we went over a speed bump, immediately hearing an awful sound from the rear of the trailer. I sat in the passenger seat as Andy jumped out to investigate. I just knew the last four days of our honeymoon was ruined. He came trotting back with the grey water tank and a piece of angle iron in his hands. He tossed them in the back of the truck and said “Well we aren’t staying here tonight we need to head back to Reno”. We boondocked overnight in the parking lot of the RV repair shop to be repaired first thing the next morning. Granted, it isn’t a roadside assistance example but it lends to how we are. If we were back at the ranch, one of us would have welded the angle iron that holds the grey tank back into place.
These days we have a Phaeton 40ih, we plan on going full time in the spring of 2021. We are still capable of doing our own repairs but big diesel rigs require big tools and we just aren’t going to haul those types of tools all across the country. And if or maybe better said, when we have a flat/blowout we will need a tire brought to us, as we aren’t going to carry a big rig tire around the country either.
To circle back to the over-kill kings, we have roadside assistance from here to Sunday. From AAA, Coach-Net, Good Sam Roadside Assistance and our RV insurance. All with different coverages at different price points.
Is RV Roadside Assistance Worth The Money? The short answer is Absolutely. The long answer is; for the last seven years I have been a long haul truck driver. With relatively new equipment, I have had three trucks with the oldest being a 2012, the other two trucks were brand new. That being said, I have needed roadside assistance eight times to be towed. on two of those occasions were recovery tow’s from accidents that required two massive wreckers. the cost of each of those incidence was nearly $10,000.00 each. Then there has been at least 30 roadside assistance calls for various mechanical help, ranging from an air leak, blown tires, busted radiator hose, to a seagull through the windshield. The cost ranging from $700.00 to $1500.00.
Another aspect of roadside assistance you don’t hear much of and doesn’t have a quantifiable dollar value, is driver safety. My truck routes consist of the 13 western states and 2 western Canadian Provence. The longest I waited on the side of the road for help to arrive was 5 hours. The faster you can get off the shoulder of the highway, the safer it is for you and others.
If you do the math you will probably agree that roadside assistance is Absolutely worth the money. Hopefully though you won’t be over-kill kings like Andy and I. Try to save a buck or two so you can travel more and adventure more. Good Sam is having a 50% off sale on all their plans. Below you can find a link and I do hope you find something that works for you and your family.
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