When you’re chasing 70 stand up paddleboard drop-ins spread across a state as large as Arizona, it helps to have a place to lay your head at night. That brings us to Speedy B, the custom Ford Transit van that Hobie Stand Up ambassador Suzi Parmentier and her husband Nate call their home away from home.
In a time of “tiny this” and “micro that” Speedy B fits right in. “Nate decided we are going to start some RV life now,” Suzi says. Only this RV gets great gas mileage, and fits in a compact parking space.
“Whenever Nate’s creativity starts to fly, I step aside. I am in awe, amazed, and can never believe the things he comes up with in his head,” she says.
The van has every essential for SUP camping in places as remote as Chevlon Lake, one of the few wilderness waters in the state, accessible via a challenging one-mile hike (a strong argument for inflatable SUPs such as the Hobie iSeries).
Speedy B has a bed, AC/DC power, a refrigerator drawer under the bed, a chuck box with room for a stove, even a wardrobe for clothes. And let’s not forget the ventilated drawer, a place to stash damp SUP clothing where it can air dry.
Suzi and Nate store their Hobie SUPs on a roof rack with a rear roller. The rack doubles as an anchor point for a 280-degree folding awning, a fun place to hang out after a SUP adventure.
“Now packing for camping is so easy and fast. We put food in the fridge and clothes in the closet and we hit the road. We could stealth camp just about anywhere. Perhaps in the future, we will install a lift kit for high clearance adventures,” says Suzi, dreaming of put-ins to come.
