What is a Rock and Roll Bed?

At Leisure Hubs, we’re all about comfort, whether we’re developing cleverly designed interiors to maximise your space, inserting additional padding into (often hard) roof beds, or adding an integral rain forest shower to a conversion to keep you and your family and friends fresh.

One of the key features of any van conversion, is the rock and roll bed installation.

A good rock and roll bed is the only way to stay comfortable and relaxed when out camping, especially when away for several days at a time; nobody wants to struggle sleeping or experience back pain over a good week.

In the interest of keeping Mum and Dad from moaning all the way through a holiday, we supply only the best bed systems on the market, offering top manufacturers such as Touch of Class, Bebb and Ribb and Cannon Forge.

A Rock and Roll bed allows the back seat of your camper to be converted into a bed with a ‘rock and roll’ action, providing a functional mechanism which transforms in seconds.

Another term you will come across when searching for a rock and roll bed is ‘crash tested’. A crash tested bed does exactly what it says on the tin, it has been tested to remain safe during an accident, leaving your passengers as safe as possible.

Purchasing a bed which is not crash tested is still legal to use but you are running the risk of the seat/bed being unsafe during an accident. Non crash tested beds still have their place in the market though, as they are a much cheaper option and ideal for those who are only using their camper as a 2 berth; allowing both people to sit in the front when traveling and only using the bed at the back when stationary.

Each bed system we supply promises premium comfort and a functional design, with the choice of both crash tested and none crash tested concepts to choose from, depending on your budget and preference.

When considering a Leisure Hubs conversion we offer a range of different options, including rock and roll beds combined with slide rail systems for the ultimate in convenience.

For more information about the features in our conversions please visit our website. 

Camper Jam

Although it’s quite far away, we’re already getting excited about this year’s Camper Jam!

Brought to you by the good people at Volkswagen Camper and Commercial and VW Bus T4&5 + magazines, Camper Jam promotes the camping lifestyle in all its glory.

With everything from ukelele workshops and great food to live music and the vans themselves, Camper Jam offers an experience the whole family can enjoy.

We’re looking forward to showing off our campers and kitchen pods so much, we thought we’d give away a couple of tickets!

All you have to do is like our Facebook and we’ll keep you updated with the rest of the details.

Get involved early and you could win two weekend passes worth £80!

We'll be blogging more about what we have in store for Camper Jam, so stay tuned...

www.leisurehubs.com

Wild Camping

We’ve covered quite a few of the UK’s camping hotspots so far in our ‘Where to Camp?’ series of blogs. But sometimes, to really experience the great outdoors in its most natural and primitive state, wild camping is the solution.

Wild Camping is simply camping without boundaries, not being confined to the walls, rules and regulations of a campsite.

If you’ve got all or most of the facilities in your campervan then why pay for a campsite?

Granted there are many advantages to using a campsite which exclude the range of facilities, such as the atmosphere and new people you meet on site, but to really get to grips with nature, wild camping is the ultimate freedom. 

Of course, there are some legalities to get around when wild camping. In England, you must ask the permission of the land owner to wild camp, but there are many exceptions, especially if you are situated far away from a local campsite.

Most land owners simply require you to leave the site as you found it, clearing all litter, burying toilet waste, taking into consideration local wildlife, not making too much noise and keeping your stay to one or two nights.

On the other hand, in Scotland, the rich countryside is your oyster, with wild camping being completely legal, although some landowners may enforce certain rules upon their land or remain except from the law.

It’s up to you to respect landowner’s wishes in both England and Scotland as it’s more than likely you’re the one going to the toilet on their property, so maintaining a high level of etiquette and understanding is essential and you should always be prepared to leave on short notice.

Legalities aside, the benefits of wild camping are in abundance, allowing you the unrivalled freedom of pulling up your handbrake near enough anywhere and enjoy the scenery. It also allows you to make the most of your campervan, utilising each of its features rather then opting for the easy option of going to an on site restaurant or communal showers.

Not only do you get to grips with nature but you also keep costs at an all time low, not having to pay for a campsite or its facilities, leaving you extra money in your pocket to spend on important things like premium sausages and real ale.

Leisure Hubs van conversions are a great way to provide all the essentials for wild camping; our built in rain forest shower especially.

For more information about Leisure Hubs van conversions please visit our website.     

VW Transporter LWB T5 4Motion…Sold!

After converting one 4Motion with the full works, we move onto the next; our very own T5 4Motion has been sold to a lucky customer.

We’ve spent the last few weeks converting our customers van to the highest spec, and after putting images online and having it on display in our workshop for a few days as a finished article; we’ve managed to sell our own 4Motion.

Inspired by the design of our latest conversion, we must have impressed our customer, as they’re looking for a full conversion, with all our premium furniture, state of the art technology and of course, the shower!

We can’t wait to start work on the new conversion; nothing beats somebody having control over the design and helping them create their dream conversion.

As soon as we set to work, we’ll be updating our Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and our blog with new images for you all to see the conversion process and elite quality of craftsmanship in each of our conversions. 

www.leisurehubs.com

Camping Recipes

One of the many great things about owning a campervan is that it allows you to get up and go any time of the year, almost every weekend can be dedicated to a new location.

Of course, making the most of your camper might mean travelling in some less savoury weather conditions.

Fortunately, our conversions are built to provide the cosiest possible design, with sheep’s wool insulation and a Webasto diesel heater; but even with these features considered, who wants to eat salad over a real winter warmer?

This delicious sausage and bean casserole is the perfect blend of warming ingredients to line your stomach for a day out in the country or a cosy night in.

As with all our recipes, you can cook this simply using basic camping facilities, it can be chopped and change to suit your taste, can serve as many as you like and is both nutritious and hearty.

This recipe uses one hob ring, requires minimal preparation and is really easy to make, enjoy! 

Sausage and Bean Casserole

Ingredients

-          1 pack of good sausages (one standard pack serves around 3)

-          1 Onion

-          A handful of spinach

-          2 beef tomatoes

-     1 pack of mushrooms

-          1 tin of chopped tomatoes

-          1 tin of baked beans

-          1 tin of kidney beans

Firstly, chop the sausages into bite size portions, peel and chop the onion, chop the beef tomatoes, mushrooms and add the spinach to a large saucepan with a dash of olive oil.

Cook until the sausages brown, onions, tomatoes and mushrooms are soft and the spinach has wilted.

Pour in the tin of chopped tomatoes and gently stir for 5 minutes.

Finally add the baked beans and kidney beans and cook for a further 5-10 minutes until the flavours have infused together.

Add salt and pepper to taste, we love a dash of Tabasco or chilli in ours but it’s totally up to you.

Serve and enjoy!

Leisure Hubs YouTube Channel

From just images alone it can be difficult to get a real understanding of the premium features and craftsmanship that goes into each of our campers.

We’ve recently made a couple of videos and uploaded them to our YouTube channel for you to get a better idea of the conversion service we offer.

Our first video looks at our latest conversion, a customer’s van tailored to his personal needs with no expense spared.

The video looks at the functional build of the T5 4 Motion, with its pop top roof, practical L-shaped work space with Corian work surface and integral appliances, bed with under bed storage, rain forest shower and sumptuous modern finish throughout. 

The second video looks at our Black T5 Transporter, which has been cleverly design to showcase some of our most prestigious features, including the rainforest shower and motorised pop up TV.

At Leisure Hubs we love a challenge, that’s why we don’t stick to the traditional template of standard van conversions. We offer a limitless range of features which you can chop and change to suit your lifestyle, and our videos give a taster of some of what we are capable of, the only limit being your imagination.

So, take a look at our first two promotional videos and tell us what you think. They may even inspire your own design!

Volksworld Cancelled: Sorry!

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it Volksworld last weekend due to the weather; sorry!

After checking the weather in the morning it didn’t seem practical for us to take out the vans and stand in a snowy field for a weekend, not to mention the damage it could have done to our Camper Pamper pods.

We’re really sorry to those who were looking to see our designs but we’re sure to be at another show soon, and we’ll definitely be attending the Volksworld show next year if we haven’t entered a new ice age thanks to climate change. 

If you’d like to check out what you may have missed this weekend then check out our portfolio of campervan designs so far on our website.