Fueling The Colorado Camping Craze
Pikes Peak Traveland GM Talks Current Trends For Campers & RVers And Gets To The Core Of What New Buyers Are Looking For
With the rugged Rocky Mountains dominating the state, Colorado provides a plethora of camping opportunities. To take on the Rockies campers need to find an RV that fits their needs, that’s where Pikes Peak Traveland comes in. As a family owned and operated RV dealership, Pikes Peak provides friendly personalized service to its customers. “I grew up in the business. My dad bought the dealership in 1982, the dealership was established in 1968 by a previous owner under the name of Bart’s Camper Sales. My dad and a partner bought it in 1982, and my dad bought his partner out in 1987. I took over operations in 2005 when he retired”, stated Tim Biles general manager for Pikes Peak Traveland.
Biles’ dealership is located in Colorado Springs just off Hwy 24 and sees a good amount of business from what he likes to call weekend warriors. “A good majority of our customers are what I call weekend warriors. They go up to the mountains for the weekend and come back when they are done and head back to work. The gateway to the mountains is highway 24 and that is where you are going to see the majority of the RVs on a Friday afternoon. You go west on highway 24 and it is filled with RVs and most are travel trailers. Coming back into town on Sunday is the same thing, they are all coming back down the mountain”, claimed Biles.
According to Biles, these weekend warriors are mostly families that prefer a small towable RV. He claims that his most popular style in the summer is the small bunkhouse style campers in the 25-foot range. Biles maintains a steady inventory of bunkhouse models in different varieties as he feels they cater to families well.
Although summer months keep Biles busy with small trailers, he claims his business is seasonal. “The majority of our business during the summer months is small trailers especially bunkhouse models. In the spring and the fall is where we sell a lot of our fifth wheels and motorhomes. The dynamic changes, it’s very seasonal. Winter is really slow for us especially on trailers, because the majority of the campgrounds are closed in the winter months”, explained Biles.
When new campers are RV shopping, Biles works to meet their needs by finding out what they are looking for. “The first thing people are asking when they look at RVs if they’ve never done it before is generally, ‘I’m looking for a trailer we can go camping in that can sleep x number of people and I need to be able to tow it behind what I own’ so there are three things that come to mind, budget, this is how we want to use it, and can I tow it”, stated Biles. Biles compared RV shopping to shoe shopping. “You have to know how you want to use it. For instance, am I going to run a marathon or use the shoe to hike. I’m not going to sell you a hiking shoe to go running, it’s just going to weigh you down and make you less efficient”.
In addition to those looking for the weekend getaway, Biles does get the occasional customer who is looking at going full time. “We get people that are kind of at the end of their working life and are looking to retire, sell their house, and live in an RV. Typically they have already been RVing most of their life and they want to get into something bigger, typically those people know what they are doing. Someone that would come in and say, ‘I’m going to retire and I want to buy this big fifth wheel and I’m going to tow it everywhere, but I’ve never done this before’ the first thing out of our mouths would be to say keep your house and buy the RV and use it and see how you like it. It isn’t for everyone, some people embrace it, they love it, and other people go, man it’s not what it’s cracked up to be and now you don’t have a house”, Biles chuckled.
Biles works to keep up with the coming trends and provide the most recent upgrades to his customers, while keeping in mind their needs. “Some of the newer models coming out are starting to put residential refrigerators in the trailers. Typically, a residential fridge would run off a 1,000-watt inverter hooked to a separate battery. The reality is that we have done our own tests and they don’t typically work really well in dry camping environments, we’re basically getting twelve hours on a battery which isn’t a lot of time. The newer model coming out however is actually a twelve-volt model. It’s only a 10-cubic foot but according to the factory you can get 2.5 days on a charge. That’s about the amount of time that people spend dry camping. The benefit of a residential fridge is that it cools a lot faster and you have more space”, claimed Biles
In addition to refrigerator upgrades, RV manufacturers are beginning to have pre-installed solar panels in trailers. “The reps are telling me coming down the line, we will see options for solar panels that are factory installed. The factory can outfit your RV with solar panels way cheaper than the dealer can as they are already designing them in the system. In 2018, we should be seeing solar built in”, stated Biles.
According to numbers Biles obtains from the Colorado Motor Vehicles Department, Colorado is showing a 10% increase in travel trailer sells and over a 30% increase in their Class C motorhome sales. Biles cannot say what the increase is due to, but is definitely happy that business seems to be growing.
Jared Langenegger
A graduate of New Mexico State University with B.S. in wildlife and fisheries science, Jared spent 15 years working in fisheries and parks management. He enjoys camping, fishing, hunting, painting, and wood working.
Make Sure To Stay At:
Golden Eagle Campground, which is located on the south side of Colorado Springs. It offers incredible views, 12+ miles of hiking trails, lakes for fishing, beautiful wildflowers and mountain vistas with a wide variety of wildlife.