@mtn.muncher, via Instagram
How does a snowbike ride the mountains differently then a snowmobile? What do they do better or worse when comparing the two?
It all boils down to this:
A snowmobile has three points of contact (track and two skis), and two out of the three are touching the ground the majority of the time (track and one of the skis), but the rider must always force the snowmobile into that arrangement. It generally needs to keep moving to maintain its line of direction. So your limiting factor to going wherever you want to go is how long you can hold a sidehill and what lies below you if you have to turn out and go down the hill.
On a snowbike, you have two points of contact (track and ski) that are in line with each other at all times and requires no extra rider exertion to put it in its best sidehill position. It can stop and restart anywhere on a sidehill line, turn downhill and immediately resume a sidehill line, and squeeze through physically narrower gaps than a snowmobile can. But, it can’t climb like a snowmobile and it doesn’t power through deep snow like a snowmobile. So your limiting factor on a snowbike is you have to go sideways to go up, and you won’t blast through deep powder with ease.
No snowbiker is claiming his snowbike has more horsepower than a sled. But they won’t shut up about getting into new terrain zones that they’d never been in on a snowmobile.
@iron.iii.oxide, via Instagram
When do the manufacturers just build a dedicated snowbike instead of these conversions that cost $20k?
We agree. The cost of entry for the optimally-setup snowbike is exorbitant. And a warranty would be great. So what’s the holdup?
Backing up a bit, it’s important to understand that the current market of new snowbike kits is driven by snowmobilers, not dirt bikers. Dirt bikers enter the sport by buying the cheapest used track kits they can find. So sledders-turned-snowbikers are carrying the financial load of depreciation to saturate the market with used inventory. Of course, it’s voluntary, so nobody is really upset about it, but the perfect solution from that perspective would be a turn-key all-in-one snowbike from an OEM.
Sorry, it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. First, Arctic Cat tried and failed with its Sherco 450 VFX project, so they’re out for the foreseeable future. Ski-Doo has no vested interest in the snowbike market. Yamaha is... well, Yamaha (the ORV part of Yamaha and the snowmobile part of Yamaha are virtually different companies under the same umbrella. The ORV part of Yamaha—dirt bikes—has zero interest in developing a snow vehicle).
That leaves Polaris / Timbersled. Say, hypothetically, Polaris spends the billion dollars on developing an all-new vehicle with virtually no crossover sharing of components or tooling with the snowmobile line (aside from suspension rail beams and brake levers). How many units do they need to sell to put a dent in ROI? Assume it retails at $15,000... because it won’t be cheaper than that. And how quickly will we as riders complain about something on the machine that needs to be changed? Most importantly, it’s the conversion kit aspect that appeals to the dirt bike crowd. They’re buying up everybody’s used kits and riding in the winter, but only because they have a dirt bike that would otherwise collect dust for 4 months. If the snowbike segment switches over to a turn-key unit, say goodbye to dirt bikers.
We’re not saying Polaris or another manufacturer won’t ever produce a turn-key snowbike. We’ve just heard enough rumbling in the industry and can see the obvious points. We’d love to have one, but the segment would have to show substantial growth to justify it.
We’ll stick to conversion kits. They’re pretty dang awesome.