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Bill
Member
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Posted: Fri Dec 26th, 2008 12:13 pm |
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I know some of what I have written here is obvious to many of you here on this board. Just pleas take into consideration that my view is that of a total newb to sledding. While I have ridden snowmobiles before; I have never been on an epic ride like this one before. I hope my fresh perspective is enjoyable for the seasoned veterans of this board.
With my current family situation I knew I was going to have plenty of time get out and ride my new toy around my home. What was unexpected was a phone call from my friend Ralph. Ralph and his wife, Tenille, were headed up north to get some unplanned trail riding in as her parents offered to take thier kids for a couple of days. My (ex)wife was coming to take our kids this same day and she was to keep them for the whole following day for christmas parties. Ralph wanted to split the cost of a cheap motel and have me tag along too. I was all for it. It was a three hour drive from my home and I got out there too late on Mon night (the 22nd) to get any riding in. I had to wait til morning. That was fine because we planned on getting up early.
Good thing Ralph is an early riser because niether Tenille or I am morning people and we would have slept in too long. Getting ready for a day out in the elements was an adventure in itself. I wore long johns, pajama pants, and blue jeans for my legs. Two pairs of socks with the outermost layer being very thick wool ones. For the torso I had on a sweat wicking garment, long john shirt, long sleeve T, and a sweat shirt, before buting on my big thick Carhart jacket. I did not spend the money on special snowmobile boots so I just wore my usual snow boots for this occasion. Luckily Ralph was looking out the new guy (me) and he brought some extra gloves, because the ones I brought along would have never made the cut. He also brought along a spare sleding helmet so that I was not forced to wear my MX one. Again it would not have been enough for the cold. This helmet even had a heated visor that worked as a defog/defrost that plugged in to the power supply on the sled. I was all set to go, or so I thought.
The motels in this area are set up to attract the many sled heads that visit the area. It is their biggest time of year to make money. We had parking for out sleds right out the front door of our room. All other vehicles parked further away around the corner of the building. We mounted up to begin our first ride through town as it's legal to ride sleds all over the place in northern Michigan. That was when I discovered my first problem. I had no place to plug in my helmet. We rode right into the gas station for a top off. Then it was straight to the local powersports dealer so that I could pick up some essentials. I was in need of some bibs, and I needed to pick up a power outlet accessory so I could use the helmets defrost system. The guy behind the counter also sold me on some wierd undergloves. They are all white with this little flakes of metal in them. They are supposed to reflect your body heat or something. They reminded me a lot of the glove Michael Jackson wore. I figured extra gloves would never hurt onad they were skin tight so they did not interfere with the big gloves either. After talking with the friendly staff we were pointed toward a nice little resteraunt in town for breakfast. I was starting to like the idea of just riding our sleds all through town. I wish we could do this with our bikes when we would ride up here. Supposedly they are working on new legislation to allow just that.
After breakfast we headed back to the motel to hook up my new accessory for the helmet. It was not the right style for my sled and we tried rigging something up for it to work. We failed and I was going to have to do without. We could have gone back and picked up a different one, but I was itching to get out on the trails and really try this machine out. So we were off in hope of finding a Polaris dealer in the next town. I quickly learned that I had made the wrong choice. The visor fogged up quickly an turned to frost. I could barely see what was in front of me. I had to make frequent stops to clear my visor. I was also learing how to control this beast. These machine have great acceleration, but I was having a hard time coming to terms with the steering. My sled was suffering from some serious understeer. My friend said it was because I got a sled with a long track. Much like dusty days in the summer I had to stay a ways back from the person in front of me. The snow would be kicked up and it would really lower my already hazy visibility. We rode like this for some time. I was having so much fun I did not realize that we had been riding for almost a couple of hours. Thats when we pulled into the next town.
A quick look at my gas gauge told me I had gone through some serious petrol. WE pulled into a gas station and I used this opportunity to play with my digital gauge. I had not paid it much attention yet as I was watching the trail with all my focus, and with my frosted visor I could not read it on the trail anyway. It said that we had already rode some 55 miles and I had managed a top speed of 60MPH during our ride. I was stoked to be seeing all the stuff this thing could tell me. I had to stop playing with the display as my group was ready to leave without me. Turns out the local dealer was a few miles down the road and we did not want to travel that far along roads on our sleds. We decided to head over to the next town to fix my helmet problem.
The trails we headed down next were more like a freeway. They followed the powerlines in a straight line for a long time. We used this as an opportunity to do some drag racing. Ralph has a SkiDoo MXZ800 or something. Remember I'm new to this so I don't know all the different models of the past few years. I do know it is an '04 model. I have the longer track and deeper lugs and it really showed. I would get the jump each time before he would come screaming past me on that overpowered machine of his. Each time he was trying to hit my emergency shut off switch on my handle bars. That was some great fun. Were bouncing down this straight at 85MPH close enough to touch with thick forest on both sides of us. If a deer or elk stepped out we would have been in trouble. Oh yeah and don't forget I could barely see where I was going. We really ate up the miles on this part of the days ride. Somewhere along the lines we had come to a cross roads where we could head back to our hotel or on to the other town where we were headed. We decided to go back because Ralph was more familiat with St. Helen which is where our motel was. But we took a different trail on the way back. It was not recently groomed like all the trail we had ridden up to this point. The trail was full of whoops. Ralph and Tenille were annoyed by this but I thought the whoops were great fun. All ten miles of them! After riding on Ralphs sled later I found out why he was so annoyed. My sled handled them much like a dirt bike would, and floated over them much easier with great bottoming resistance. When I was on Ralphs sled there was a spine crunching thump over every whoop.
Back in town we needed another fill up. This time the odometer read 115 miles. I was averaging about 10 miles per gallon. Another stop by the dealership and I had the right hook ups this time. Ralph also needed a new CVT belt because his was shredding. We also plotted out our next ride to another nearby town where a new resteraunt had just opened up. Back at the motel I was installing the power cord when Ralph laid down next to my sled and started inspecting everything underneath. He wanted to see how I was set up. Thats when he noticed my sled was set at the softest setting. Not really recommended for someone of my weight (close to 250lbs). He adjusted the sled to a mid setting to see if that improved my skleds handling at all. It did. In fact I had a much easier time controling my sled I could easily handle 10 to 15MPH faster through all of the turns. The great thing is I think I could get even better performance by moving up another notch on the setting because my sled was still way understeering all the corners. I decided to wait 'til my next ride to try the next setting because I did not want to stop riding long enough to adjust everything. By now it was dark outside and I got to test the massive headlights this thing has. I was force to use low beams because of a heavy snow fall was just reflecting the high beams back at me. The lows were pointed to close in for my tastes and I voiced my concerns at our next stop. Ralph showed me the headlamp adjustment knob on my dash and that soved my problems. I could raise my healights angle easily with that thing.
In the next town we stopped for dinner at a place called Freds, or Freddies. From the outside it looked like a really fancy place, and I was worried that we would look out of place in all of our gear. But we are in Northern Mi and all my worries were for naught. They could not have been more happy to see some sleadheads walk through their door. The tables were roomy, and the food was great. The waitress was as new as the restraunt so our service was not the best. But she was very cute and had her blonde hair up in these little pig tails so it was easy to forgive her. The bench racing and talk of toys made for great conversation. I think my company feed of my excitement for my first experience. They seemed to having as good of a time as I was. I was glad because I did not want to feel like a third wheel.
Again we took different trails on the way back to the motel as Ralph like as much variation in his rides as possible. The snow had stopped falling by this time and I could use my high beams. I was a lot more comforitable with the added vision they allowed, but my visor was still fogging up. Ralph wanted another go on my sled and he confirmed that my power cord was working as his helmet did not fog up. while I still could not see even on his sled. The visor was broken this whole time! Luckily he did not spend much time on my sled because I could barely control the monster he rides. Not only does it spin his track violently but it darts all over the place. He says it works better at full speed like that. I will have to take his word for it because I was not brave enough to get that thing up to speed. We made it back to the motel and loaded up only 2 hours after I had originally planned to leave. I was having too much fun and did not pay attention to the clock. Nor did I care for the fun to stop yet. But the real world was calling and we had to get back. Before loading up I had another look at my display numbers. I told me I rode 178 miles, put 7.5 hours on the engine, and reached a max speed of 85MPH for the day. what it did not tell me was that I had used 17 gallons of gas, and nearly a full bottle of oil. I can't wait to come back and try to top all of those numbers.
The ride home took me twice as long as there was a bad snow storm rolling though and the roads were terrible. I even slid into a snowbank along the freeway and had to wait 40 minutes for a wercker to come pull me out. I miss having a 4 wheel drive truck. I hope you enjoyed reading my story as much as I did telling it. Next time I hope to have pictures to accompany it. I left the camera at home this time because my tunnel bag has not arrived and I would not have had a place to store it. Here are a few pics of my new sled back in my garage after the ride.
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Bill Horrigan
2009 Polaris 600 Switchback
2000 Honda CR250
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BillGipson
Member
| Joined: | Wed Dec 10th, 2008 |
| Location: | Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 39 |
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Posted: Mon Dec 29th, 2008 12:14 am |
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| Wonderful story. We've all been there at one time. Glad you have fun.
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Member-Michigan Snowmobile Association
Member-Seney Snowmobile Association
Current Ride: 2007 Arctic Cat F6 LXR
Proud to be an American.
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Bill
Member
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Posted: Thu Jan 8th, 2009 04:55 am |
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Thnks Bill,
I am excited to head back up north when the opportunity presents itself. In the meantime I've been praying for more snow so I could check out the local spots like Kensington state park.
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Bill Horrigan
2009 Polaris 600 Switchback
2000 Honda CR250
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