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Ski-Doo's Summit X benefits from some mild, but important, refinements this season. There's a new sway bar that is 50% less stiff to help make the machine easier to sidehill. Like the Cat the Ski-Doo also gets a new seat for 2010, this one being taller and narrower for improved transition from sitting to standing. The rear suspension also received changes to increase transfer and reduce sag. Changes include a new longer center shock, reshaped rails, new rocker arm and new calibration on all shocks. While the changes improve the sled's overall handling the new rails and center shock give the track a slightly steeper approach angle.
Impressions: Ski-Doo's spring-only Summit X has the best power-to-weight ratio among the 800 mountain class, which helps make it the best climbing sled in this class. When it gets steep and deep everyone wants to be on a Summit. The extra inch of width on Summit's 16-inch track greatly helps its deep snow churning ability. Its PowderMax track works great in a range of snow conditions. In the hard spring snow, we found the track had awesome traction, and in other tests where we've had deep powder the track also performed well.
While Summit's excellent climbing ability can't be contested, its handling could use some help. The sled's aggressive riding position takes a lot of getting used to and is very different from the Polaris and especially the Arctic Cat. You are so far forward on the machine that it feels like you're almost standing on the skis.
The Summit X is definitely the hardest of the group to sidehill on. When trying to hold a line on the Summit X it feels like you're constantly fighting it and the machine just wants to point downhill again. This is likely due to the sway bar and although the Ski-Doo's sway bar isn't as stiff as before we still had to work a lot harder sidehilling on the XP than the M8 or Dragon.
While some may say the 800R PowerTEK engine needs fuel injection this carbureted twin still delivers incredible performance. The engine is very torquey and has great pull from down low and the motor's responsiveness enables you to get an instant blast of acceleration whenever it's needed. This is especially handy when getting out of tricky mountain situations. Yet while the throttle response is excellent the actual throttle lever pull is far too stiff and we found ourselves with aching thumbs after extended time on Summits