The Red Pearl is our very excellent crew vehicle. She's got a few pirate details, as you'll see. But the overall concept was maximizing use of space and creating a vehicle that...
We added a jackknife seat/bed that we got from a junkyard and a "micro-fridge". The "micro-fridge" is designed for use in older college dorms with underrated wiring. It evens out power use by cutting power to the fridge when the microwave is in use. That's perfect for our purposes. We added a 2000w inverter (overkill, but...) and a deep-cycle cabin battery.
Most foods stay nicely in the micro-fridge (which has a separate, USABLE freezer to keep my rice pudding popsicles cold!), freeing up the ice chests for - yep! - ICE. Keeping food out of the ice is one of the epic struggles of good crewing..
The bed is actually comfy for two - almost unheard of in a crewing vehicle.
The shelving and storage areas are all usable, and the crows' nest (Yakima Space Case) is big enough to hold the gear that you don't want to have to climb over to get to the good stuff.
We've added some more homey touches too (the seat covers, custom license plate). A platform rack in the back (not shown) hold two bikes, and two more fit on top on tray mounts, along with spare wheels.
We've got a few small things left to do to her, but she's already had a couple of sailings and she's one sweet ride.
- is easy to drive, and gets at least decent mileage
- is comfortable for two people for extended bike camping trips
- holds 4 bikes and people and their gear for races
- eliminates many of the frustrations we've had using a minivan for races (eg floating lunchmeat).
We added a jackknife seat/bed that we got from a junkyard and a "micro-fridge". The "micro-fridge" is designed for use in older college dorms with underrated wiring. It evens out power use by cutting power to the fridge when the microwave is in use. That's perfect for our purposes. We added a 2000w inverter (overkill, but...) and a deep-cycle cabin battery.
Most foods stay nicely in the micro-fridge (which has a separate, USABLE freezer to keep my rice pudding popsicles cold!), freeing up the ice chests for - yep! - ICE. Keeping food out of the ice is one of the epic struggles of good crewing..
The bed is actually comfy for two - almost unheard of in a crewing vehicle.
The shelving and storage areas are all usable, and the crows' nest (Yakima Space Case) is big enough to hold the gear that you don't want to have to climb over to get to the good stuff.
We've added some more homey touches too (the seat covers, custom license plate). A platform rack in the back (not shown) hold two bikes, and two more fit on top on tray mounts, along with spare wheels.
We've got a few small things left to do to her, but she's already had a couple of sailings and she's one sweet ride.
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