By: Mark “Motorhead” Lester
It’s been an amazing start to the winter in just about every area of the North American snowbelt – in particular in areas where snowmobiles are used on trails.
As a result of an abundance of snow, early grooming and lots of sleds on the trails we’ve been inundated with riders complaining about darting and unpredictable steering feedback. Inevitably the “biggee” comes up – “How can I eliminate or at least reduce inside ski lift?”
Truthfully, the dynamics that create inside ski-lift – essentially vehicle center of gravity (CG) and roll centre cannot be altered or changed in any meaningful way to either reduce or control inside ski lift.
The way the sled is built is the way it’s built. You could lose some weight – that might help. However, there is a way to make inside ski lift manageable and to eliminate – I mean eradicate – annoying darting and hunting on trails. Let me talk about the issues sled by sled.
The sleds with the most profound darting issues on the trails we’ve ridden thus far this year are the Yamaha Nytro and the Ski-Doo XP’s – keeping in mind we’ve had lots of snow and the trails are not really hardpack except for a few hours after grooming and freezing. Conditions this year – where we ride – are not at all like last season.
Check out these four features discussing what we learned about our fleet so far.
– WHAT WE LEARNED ABOUT OUR POLARIS IQ
– WHAT WE LEARNED ABOUT OUR YAMAHA
– WHAT WE LEARNED ABOUT OUR SKI-DOO XP
– WHAT WE LEARNED ABOUT OUR ARCTIC CAT F
