No Timbersled (or Polaris or Klim) at Snow Expo in West Y.

[Chadx]

Got down to the snow expo this morning and, walking through the hall, noticed no Klim, which bummed me out because i was looking for a new coat. Then noticed no Polaris. Strange but wasn't a big deal. Then no Timbersled guys and no Timbersled demos. Real bummer! Asked a couple people and they said Polaris, and so all the sub companies, pulled out "at the last minute". Not sure how last minute it was, but no timbersled and no klim left a major hole in the show for me. Two other snowbike brands giving demos, which was nice. Timbersled should have been theere with demos to get comparisons in the same snow conditions. Word was they were going to pull one out of another booth for test rides. Not sure if that happened.

Would be interesting to know if it was a polaris decision and timbersled had no choice or if it was a timbersled decision. Either way, why? Liability? Schedule conflict? Lack of payoff because brand is well recognized now and internal company perception is it doesn't need the marketing?

Anyone know the story?

Edit: Polaris ended up with a presence in West, but they took the freeby way and put out some 2017 sleds in front of the polaris dealership rather than paying for a spot in the expo show hall. Hate to see companys do that. The locals put a lot of work into the show and count on the revenue. If all the brands did, or start to do, that, these shows will go extinct. It is a shame to see.

 

[WingNutRacing]

Too bad

Seems like the Expo has been dwindling for years, when I was a kid it was huge, and fun, all kinds of things goin on..... Too bad, I enjoy going down there, but we don't anymore......

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

BEST YET

No Polaris.......... No KLIM and a ton of Timbersleds with no factory support for all their loyal buyers ? For sure some Polaris brass have a rational explanation for creeping away. Whatever their company policy, it was poor support on their part for a community that has fought for and promoted snowmobiling and winter sports and helped Polaris stay in bussiness through some pretty dark years.

BEST ever though for riding the snow bikes. Many thanks for the two SNOW BIKE mfg that came out to the air port for three days and offering long demo rides on their bikes. And better yet, the company owners and engineers were there offering a lot of great information on their personal testing and prototyping in taking a finished product to the market. thanks Randy and crew at SNOWTRAX and Jaron at SNOWTECH MX, these guys endured rain and snow and 10,000 stupid quiestions , setup side by side at the airport offering demo rides head to head on various bike brands.
All clearly winners. The obvious looser was the track that didn't work in those snow conditions or on the race track on Sunday. As per the sled track evolution, soft snow tracks are soft on traction. Nothing like good testing for the public.

Saturday ride we hit maybe 2 ft of last nites deep drop in Taylors fork on top, counted 25 plus bikes by days end, some sun, blinding snow, v forece winds on the ridge as per norm, ski unfriendly rock studded icy trail out of the parking lots for a few miles got comments from all the bikers we talked to.

 

[WingNutRacing]

?

Did you ride the Snowtech?

 

[MotoTrax LLC]

BEST ever though for riding the snow bikes. Many thanks for the two SNOW BIKE mfg that came out to the air port for three days and offering long demo rides on their bikes. And better yet, the company owners and engineers were there offering a lot of great information on their personal testing and prototyping in taking a finished product to the market. thanks Randy and crew at SNOWTRAX and Jaron at SNOWTECH MX, these guys endured rain and snow and 10,000 stupid quiestions , setup side by side at the airport offering demo rides head to head on various bike brands.

Thank you to everyone who showed up to ride! It was an absolute pleasure sharing the space and demoing along side Snowtech MX. The friendly competition that is developing in the market is really enabling all of us to grow very quickly and help to support the industry. Our MotoTrax team got back to work this morning and said that the expo this year was a blast. We cycled through 100+ riders in the three days that we were there. Some of them had never ridden a snow bike before and others were long term snow bikers that were looking to experience some of the new technology in the industry. Regardless of there experience level, everyone came back with a smile on their face. Even if the expo is getting smaller it was still very beneficial for us to be there.

 

[CATSLEDMAN1]

SNOW TECH KIT

Did you ride the Snowtech?

Jaron Ball the owner of snowtech had his kit on YamYZ and KX, Ktm, Husky and I rode his YZ kit with Yeti track and KTM with yeti track.

Jaron's kit is a machinist dream for detailed cnc parts.......a wow.
check the picture of his belt drive, aero space fit and finish. SnowTech also had a salesmen at expo hawking his kits, inventory on site for sale. Also had a good talk with the SNOWTECH rental fleet owner, he has bikes and kits for sale before next years upgrade. Rent them everyday to destructo cowboys and you will find out.

Lots of good woop sections for motomashing on the demo's if you wanted to check that out and Dan and I did. Snowtech with his shock strut ( made in house.......again try building your own shock too boot ) better than our older TS kit clones/airshox.Snowtech had as good a suspension as I have ever ridden on a snowbike.

Dan and I both rode and traded back and forth on the Mototrax kits also YZ and KTM350. Great suspension, again major step up over what we ride even with solid strut.BEST Kit I have ridden yet for standing up and riding like a good trail bike...........not sure why, just felt great standing and I rode for 15 minutes that way ? Mototrax demo convinced us not buy a couple of 129 Yeti tracks, mototrax had both tracks to try. In corn snow and fresh wet powder, just too much track flapping and flexing. A 2" Camo extreme had more traction by a margin than the flexy 2.5 Yeti. Been there on the sled tracks, cat went there years ago, bought killed them when they dished out mtn sleds with powder only tracks. Watched a bunch of bikes climb out a steep headwall SAT on packed sled tracks. The TS tracks did well, the Yeti track certainly had max track speed and made it......too much spin.

I have gotten used to a 141 2.5 CAMO I bought from Cat R&D they had cut to 14" for testing then I cut it again for my bike. Hard as a rock 90 duro, but two winters in deep powder, no complaints, I just wish I could buy it in a 129.

The race track on Sunday was a great place to see everything out there going head to head, a dozen 10 bike drag races into the first corner. You might call it the big SKI TEST. Almost ever combination. I didn't stay to see the final but I can about guess how it turned out. A couple of guys were real racers. Gearing was paramount, if you can't gear and tune your engine in a few minutes you were going to be left behind. No brand loyalty for racers, you put together the best combo of bike/suspension/track and tune it and ride it. It was like sno x twenty years ago. Guys were trying to hustle around the track with a full tank of gas on the back in the rack............way bad idea, but lots of fun.

 

[SteepNdeep450]

No Polaris.......... No KLIM and a ton of Timbersleds with no factory support for all their loyal buyers ? For sure some Polaris brass have a rational explanation for creeping away. Whatever their company policy, it was poor support on their part for a community that has fought for and promoted snowmobiling and winter sports and helped Polaris stay in bussiness through some pretty dark years.

BEST ever though for riding the snow bikes. Many thanks for the two SNOW BIKE mfg that came out to the air port for three days and offering long demo rides on their bikes. And better yet, the company owners and engineers were there offering a lot of great information on their personal testing and prototyping in taking a finished product to the market. thanks Randy and crew at SNOWTRAX and Jaron at SNOWTECH MX, these guys endured rain and snow and 10,000 stupid quiestions , setup side by side at the airport offering demo rides head to head on various bike brands.
All clearly winners. The obvious looser was the track that didn't work in those snow conditions or on the race track on Sunday. As per the sled track evolution, soft snow tracks are soft on traction. Nothing like good testing for the public.

Saturday ride we hit maybe 2 ft of last nites deep drop in Taylors fork on top, counted 25 plus bikes by days end, some sun, blinding snow, v forece winds on the ridge as per norm, ski unfriendly rock studded icy trail out of the parking lots for a few miles got comments from all the bikers we talked to.

I have to agree I was there Saturday and was bummed when MotoTrax was saying Polaris/Timbersled pulled out.

On another note the MotoTrax crew was awesome to talk to at their demo spot and in their booth. I probably stood and talked to them about their demo 20-30 minutes after I rode it. SnowTech was a bit late that morning but still awesome to demo their kit also. Got to ride that with their modded simmons ski and the yeti ski. Both MotoTrax and SnowTech have some very cool features and it was refreshing to talk to their guys (or guy with SnowTech) on the setups they had.