I
izzni
Well-known member
Absoutely love the sled. Got me through 5.5 days of riding without a single problem. Only the last 3.5 days were what I would call moutain riding though. Sled has about 900 miles on it now, all with the same belt (I suppose it is time for a new one).
First the good:
1. She climbs like nothing I've ridden, and it isn't just point and shoot. You can do cool stuff like climb a bit, sidehill a bit, transition abruptly back into a climb, go back to sidehilling a bit, and then go climb again, all without getting stuck. Even after you've scrubbed all your speed during the carve back up the hill the shear power of the machine will get you back up to speed.
2. She's very forgiving of less than ideal manuevers. At low speed you can almost stop on an incline in very deep snow and then get back on the throttle and work your way out. It annoyed the guys behind me several times since I could slow down and very deliberately pick my path, whereas they had to maintain a lot of momentum to power through and a couple times almost ran me over.
3. Super duper easy to get unstuck. Not once during the trip did I have to try and lift the back of the sled. You'd just pack down enough that you could rock the sled a bit, throw her wide open, rock her back and forth and after the turbo spooled up she'd almost launch you up and away. The track speed she can gather is amazing.
Now the bad:
1. She dives like a German u-boat under air attack. I'm almost positive this has everything to do with the skis. Another guy on the trip has a Yamaha Nyto XTX with ski skins and did not have this problem. You'd be carving along a meadow and the nose would just sink. Most of the time she'd pop up again, but on occasion she wouldn't. I was doubtful about everyone saying the skis suck, but it's true, SLP Powder Pros for me I think. I got stuck a lot, but 4/5ths of the stucks were because she dived and rolled. Later in the trip I got better about mitigating the problem, but everytime she did it I got more and more pissed.
2. The snow flap is retarded, but not for the reason you'd think. I never had to actually try and grab her from the back and lift her up, so I can't say that the center section not being grabable is a problem. However, whenever you take her into the deep stuff the snow flap gets stuck up. It has some weird ribbing on it that it will actually stick straight back (well, almost) and stay there. Everytime I got back on hard pack I'd have to get off, pull the tether, go back and kick the snow flap down, hook the tether back up, start her up, and move on. I'm not sure if I'm going to replace it, but at least I'm going to figure out which ribbing is making it do that and dremel it.
3. Right before the trip I cleaned my reverse sensor by opening the chaincase. Ever since then it doesn't shift fully into reverse. I tried to back it up to transfer it onto another trailer on the way to the Big Horns and she ground. When we got to Bear Lodge I tried to back into the parking spot and she made it about 10 feet before she popped out of gear and ground. Since then I haven't touched the reverse button, and she never popped out of forward fortunately.
4. The reverse sensor that I cleaned is just starting to act up again after about 300 miles. I guess I'll need to clean it again, but for ****'s sake, why does everything about the reverse mechanism have to suck so much?
In conclusion:
Thank you Arctic Cat for making a sled that exceeded my expectations! The number of bad things I pointed out are more numerous than the good, but the good things are far more important to me than the bad. Besides the reverse being a peice of **** and my heated seat not working, I've had 900 miles (adjusted to compensate for 5% optimistic odometer) completely trouble free, with 300 of those being some awesome mountain riding. It would really really be nice if I could depend on the reverse (or at least get it working again), but until then I'm likely going to put the reverse delete in it and disconnect the sensor. I have 2 or 3 more trips planned this year, and I can't wait to see how she handles with real skis.
First the good:
1. She climbs like nothing I've ridden, and it isn't just point and shoot. You can do cool stuff like climb a bit, sidehill a bit, transition abruptly back into a climb, go back to sidehilling a bit, and then go climb again, all without getting stuck. Even after you've scrubbed all your speed during the carve back up the hill the shear power of the machine will get you back up to speed.
2. She's very forgiving of less than ideal manuevers. At low speed you can almost stop on an incline in very deep snow and then get back on the throttle and work your way out. It annoyed the guys behind me several times since I could slow down and very deliberately pick my path, whereas they had to maintain a lot of momentum to power through and a couple times almost ran me over.
3. Super duper easy to get unstuck. Not once during the trip did I have to try and lift the back of the sled. You'd just pack down enough that you could rock the sled a bit, throw her wide open, rock her back and forth and after the turbo spooled up she'd almost launch you up and away. The track speed she can gather is amazing.
Now the bad:
1. She dives like a German u-boat under air attack. I'm almost positive this has everything to do with the skis. Another guy on the trip has a Yamaha Nyto XTX with ski skins and did not have this problem. You'd be carving along a meadow and the nose would just sink. Most of the time she'd pop up again, but on occasion she wouldn't. I was doubtful about everyone saying the skis suck, but it's true, SLP Powder Pros for me I think. I got stuck a lot, but 4/5ths of the stucks were because she dived and rolled. Later in the trip I got better about mitigating the problem, but everytime she did it I got more and more pissed.
2. The snow flap is retarded, but not for the reason you'd think. I never had to actually try and grab her from the back and lift her up, so I can't say that the center section not being grabable is a problem. However, whenever you take her into the deep stuff the snow flap gets stuck up. It has some weird ribbing on it that it will actually stick straight back (well, almost) and stay there. Everytime I got back on hard pack I'd have to get off, pull the tether, go back and kick the snow flap down, hook the tether back up, start her up, and move on. I'm not sure if I'm going to replace it, but at least I'm going to figure out which ribbing is making it do that and dremel it.
3. Right before the trip I cleaned my reverse sensor by opening the chaincase. Ever since then it doesn't shift fully into reverse. I tried to back it up to transfer it onto another trailer on the way to the Big Horns and she ground. When we got to Bear Lodge I tried to back into the parking spot and she made it about 10 feet before she popped out of gear and ground. Since then I haven't touched the reverse button, and she never popped out of forward fortunately.
4. The reverse sensor that I cleaned is just starting to act up again after about 300 miles. I guess I'll need to clean it again, but for ****'s sake, why does everything about the reverse mechanism have to suck so much?
In conclusion:
Thank you Arctic Cat for making a sled that exceeded my expectations! The number of bad things I pointed out are more numerous than the good, but the good things are far more important to me than the bad. Besides the reverse being a peice of **** and my heated seat not working, I've had 900 miles (adjusted to compensate for 5% optimistic odometer) completely trouble free, with 300 of those being some awesome mountain riding. It would really really be nice if I could depend on the reverse (or at least get it working again), but until then I'm likely going to put the reverse delete in it and disconnect the sensor. I have 2 or 3 more trips planned this year, and I can't wait to see how she handles with real skis.
