Vision Fulfilled: Minnesota R1T Goes Rocky Mountain High

[Budman]

Dreams do come true.

Sept 2021. Rivian holds a big press event in Colorado for automotive journalists to play with some fresh out of the box Rivian R1T's. I'm in Minneapolis, an EV enthusiast, wanting a great EV but Telsa's are just not doing it for me, have an order placed for a Mustang Mach e. I'm vaguely aware of Rivian, they plan to make a pickup someday, back of my mind.... The videos of the reviews hit YouTube and BAMM, I'm hooked on Rivian. I see those shots of R1T's climbing around the Colorado mountains and start having visions of me doing the same thing someday........ Reservation order placed that week, figuring maybe 2 to 3 years for delivery.

March 2022: Start getting more optimistic about an earlier delivery. Cancel Mach e order.

July 2022: Rivian R1T delivered to my house 2 years ahead of expectations.

July 2023: With 21,000 happy and trouble free miles already on the clock from our local driving and many trips to our Hayward Wisconsin cabin we hit the road for the San Juan mountains of Colorado. Long story short: Vision Fulfilled! The images below will tell the story.

Sidebar 1: The longer story: The R1T performed flawlessly. Took us places our Honda CRV never could. "Got" to use the on board compressor when we woke up one morning, hit the road and got a tire pressure warning. Found a screw head imbedded in the front right tire. Aired up and did a 30 mile detour to Discount Tire In Durango. Got us in right after opening, patched the tire for free and made me a customer for life. The hiking around Silverton is great, but dam, that air is thin! Hot but pleasant weather. Highly recommend the destination. Did not need to seek out off-road trails. The roads to the hiking trailheads recommended by our hiking guide book were plenty rough enough! Could not have done it in our CRV. The R1T was an enabler and made our trip much better than it otherwise would have been. My DIY camp kitchen and induction burners worked great.

Sidebar 2: Charging. Used Electrify America and a little Charge Point across MN, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado without incident or drama. Always worked fine. Used Rivan RAN at three cities in SW Colorado and that, off course, was awesome. Looking forward to the build-out of the full RAN network.

Sidebar 3: Range and Efficiency. With the roof top tent on the back and going 75 to 80 across Nebraska I was getting around 2.1 to 2.35 miles per KwH depending on temperature and wind. Enough charging options that range was never a concern. Rented RV campsites and charged up while camping. Drove around the mountains A LOT and never worried about range.


Dreams do come true. Thank you to the entire Rivian team and community.

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[HokieBird7980]

Great Pics. Thinking of going to CO in late September. Noticed you had a light bar on the back since with RTT you can't see the one on back of Rivian. Where did you get it and how did you hook it up? i have an iKamper RTT and i could mount same type of thing to the actual hardshell, but not sure how to plug it in or where. Thanks again for sharing the pics. It's a great state to explore. i can't wait to get out there too.

 

[Trandall]

@Budman great post and pictures. Experiences of things going well are underreported.

 

[BoltAction]

Amazing! We did a road trip from Socal to Telluride in 2019 and got to explore that area as well, breathtaking. What road specifically did you take those photos on?

 

[Budman]

Great Pics. Thinking of going to CO in late September. Noticed you had a light bar on the back since with RTT you can't see the one on back of Rivian. Where did you get it and how did you hook it up? i have an iKamper RTT and i could mount same type of thing to the actual hardshell, but not sure how to plug it in or where. Thanks again for sharing the pics. It's a great state to explore. i can't wait to get out there too.

I got this light bar off of Amazon. Works great. Makes the vehicle way more visible when turning and changing lanes. Needed to get a tail light extension wire harness and a converter from the round plug on the Rivian to the more typical 4 in a line plug.

do get warnings from the vehicle about switching to trailer mode because it detects the plug but I cancel out of those.

https://www.amazon.com/Nilight-TR-0...RRFYCC&ref_=pd_bap_d_grid_rp_0_34_nped_t&th=1

 

[COdogman]

Amazing story and write up!

There are so many beautiful spots in CO, but you picked once of the best. Come back again and see more!

 

[Budman]

Great Pics. Thinking of going to CO in late September. Noticed you had a light bar on the back since with RTT you can't see the one on back of Rivian. Where did you get it and how did you hook it up? i have an iKamper RTT and i could mount same type of thing to the actual hardshell, but not sure how to plug it in or where. Thanks again for sharing the pics. It's a great state to explore. i can't wait to get out there too.

One other answer to your question about how it is hooked up. The tent has rails on it for the hold down brackets. I took a 1x2 piece of wood, drilled a hole through it for a bolt. I used a large washer that fits in the rail slots to mount the wood. See pic.

 

[HokieBird7980]

This is perfect. Thanks for the link. Gonna measure the I-Kamper and see which width i need. Thanks again for sharing.

 

[Budman]

Amazing! We did a road trip from Socal to Telluride in 2019 and got to explore that area as well, breathtaking. What road specifically did you take those photos on?

Both photos were around Silverton. The water crossing was near the Highland Mary Lakes trailhead on CR4. The alpine road was to the Nancy Grassy Peak trailhead on CR 14. The CR14 drive was really cool. Definitely worth doing! Rough and single lane some of the way so you might have to back up to a wide spot to let somebody by sometime.

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