AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
“Is this thing on?” We got that comment a lot along with a bunch of other comments from our test riders on the Ski-Doo Renegade Adrenaline ACE 900.
The Rotax ACE 900 engine is so quiet, you can almost hear the snowflakes hit the ground when you’re sitting at idle. And there’s no difference when you push the throttle with the new Intelligent Throttle Control (iTC). You can literally inch this sled along with the uber-low clutch engagement at 2,200 rpms.
As nice as all that sounds, after my first 50 miles on the Renegade I needed to convince myself to keep riding. It had nothing to do with rider comfort or how the sled handled. That was all great, but adjusting to the ‘drive-by-wire’ iTC was a tad challenging.
I’ll be the first to admit my learning curve can be a bit steep for some things (shocking, I know), and the iTC had me completely baffled initially. But then I jumped on it again, and again. Once I adjusted to it (around mile 150 or so) I was wishing more of our demo sleds had the iTC control. It can be ultra-sensitive at first, but you soon realize that sensitivity is really your friend. You get the full spectrum of the power band and every fraction of performance in between. It’s very easy on the throttle thumb too.
And I shouldn’t forget to mention the three operating modes – eco, standard and sport. The Renegade rarely leaves the sport mode when I’m on it. It gives the engine a performance level that more resembles what you’d expect from a typical 2-stroke. If fuel economy is your thing, we’ve seen numbers nearing 22 mpg in eco mode. Standard seems to be somewhere in between, but I haven’t seen enough improvement in fuel economy over the sport mode to convince me it’s worth the lesser performance.
That may seem like a knock against the fuel economy in standard mode, but it’s not. The sport mode fuel economy is just that good at around 16 – 17 mpg.
The more I ride this sled, the more I like it. And isn’t that how every purchase should be?