first ride reefin on the 2003 rev

Ski-Doo engineering has finally put into production what short guys and aggressive riders have known for decades: when you're working hard on the trails, there's a lot of wasted seat behind you. 'Doo's new pyramidal chassis, dubbed the Rev, relocates the driver about twelve inches farther forward, and about an inch higher up. The result is a full-time aggressive body position, where you're ready to stand up if a nasty one sneaks up on you and where you're always ready to rail around a tight corner.

I had the great pleasure of riding the 800 Rev for an entire day up in the far northern reaches of Quebec. The new ergonomics and handling characteristics took the better part of the morning to get used to. At first, I found myself fighting the ergos and the sled itself. Instead of the usual lateral lean of cornering a standard ZX sled, the Rev asks for its inputs to be up near the cab.

With the extreme forward position, you get great bite on the skis, for great handling. The tradeoff is that the rear tends to be a little looser than normal. Again, this is just part of the new ride style necessary for the Rev. With a little saddle time, I was able to maximize handling by using the light rear to toss the sled deeper into the corners and square off to exit. Not a bad deal at all!

The looks of the sled are a bit radical, to say the least. To look at it for a minute is to try to find the history of the styling cues. Of course, there's a bit of Phazer in the rotating windshield complex. There's a strong hint of Blade in the hood and front end. Sea*Doo figures heavily into the seat. Heck, there's even a little flavor of Snow Hawk in the gas tank and console area. But once you get in the saddle, the Rev is completely unique.

We had prototype calibrated Sport suspensions to test in Quebec. I thought the HPG shocks were set perfectly. Ski-Doo opted to use the Variable Rate shock in the front of the SC-10 III skid, as that's where the rider sits.

The new-for-Ski-Doo A-arm suspension has been named Response Angle Suspension (RAS). It features a machined aluminum ski spindle, which is roughly four pounds lighter than the competition. A ten degree backward motion is said to better disperse the force of impact among the shock, spring and chassis. The sway bar is mounted halfway up the lower arm.

The whole package, to me, seemed to work perfectly. With a minimum of tuning, I was able to find a setup that offered enough ski pressure to corner hard, with good preload on that center shock for big bump absorption. Overall, it skipped over the smaller bumps like they weren't there, and handled the nasty stuff like a champ.

The Rev has been in the works since roughly 1997, when a pair of concept engineers started daydreaming and working on parts of it over their lunch hour. Since then, it has been nurtured by engineers, embraced by executives and tested by racers. The end result, dare I say it… is the first Ski-Doo sled I've truly liked everything about. It's time to discard your sit-down sled and head for the Rev!