Trends / Flavor of the month

[0neoldfart]

Just some random thoughts, or rambling on my part. I've been riding in the mountains for a "while", and although we have improvements to the equipment almost every year, snowmobilers as a group tend to rush out to get the next "big" thing, whether it be a sled or parts/add ons for our existing sled - myself included. I thought it would be interesting to see some of the market trends exposed for the downsides as well, feel free to add items or comment.
- 2 wheel kits: (lighter and supposedly easier to initiate a turn, downside was decreased reliability, especially under boost)
- short coolers: (lighter, less snow retention, but machines tend to overheat on the ride up to the alpine, making scratchers a necessity)
- reduced wheels in skidframe: (less weight, but increased hifax / track wear in low snow conditions)
- handlebar height: wasn't long ago everyone had 8 & 10" risers, now the trend is going back to shorter height bars
- handlebar controls: used to be console mounted, then to the bars for egronomics, most are back on the console
- running boards: sleds in the 90's had narrow boards with no snow evacuation, then went WIDE with evacuation, now getting narrower
- painted tunnels: were common in the 90's, unpainted to save weight and cost in the new millennium, now becoming popular again
- seats: low in the 90's, higher by 2009-10, now going back down in height
Just a few of the things I noted here - seems like the snowmobiling industry is quickly becoming more like the fashion industry. Funny thing is, I had as much fun riding in the mountains years ago, with machinery that wasn't even close in performance then the newer stuff. Am I alone in this thinking, or just getting old? Everything we ask for / wish for comes at a higher cost - soon we will price sleds out of reach at some point.

 

[geo]

Not for the oil patch crews lol. If the price goes up and people pay, then next year it will go up again.
My first full load diesel PU was sticker at $27,000. Today they list at more than I paid for my house the first time lol. They sell more of those PU`s today than they did in `93 lol.

Your right about sled trends. The little things have gone full circle a time or two but in general there is little comparison where you can go off the floor and straight to the mountain. Not even close.
With the best modded, top of the heap sled from 93 it would take a dedicated group until late Jan. to reach the back bowls. Today you can get there on your first ride if you can miss the house sized, 1/2 exposed, rocks lol.

As for having fun, I still see lot's small groups of guys on mid 2000 sleds having a hoot. I'm sure they are having as much fun as anyone. Trouble is in the grouping not the new sleds.
If just one person steps it up to the new iron, it changes the group. I still ride with old friends on old sleds that are well maintained and modded to the best they can be. Those are Sunday rides to me because you never have to really push yourself or your sled.

I have fun and enjoy the stops on Sunday but I have more fun lol when I'm with a group of equal sleds simply because we push on at more challenging pace.

 

[eyefish123]

I think that we, as the buying public push the manufacturers to come out bigger and better every year. When they don't make the improvements we want, the aftermarket companies are there to take up the slack. The trends do seem to go in circles because we find different ways to ride and everything changes. For the most part, we are followers. Some of the nationally recognized riders say "low bars" so we have to try it. I think that all of us are looking for that magic combination of things that makes the perfect ride. I personally hope I never find it. I like tinkering with things. Some end up good and some not so much. I know I can't take that money with me when I go so I might just as well spend it on sleds. And of course, as we keep paying the price and buying new, the price keeps going up. Guilty!!! Hope everybody had a good year and a great one next year.

 

[IDspud]

I am 6'2", have tall bars for lower back comfort. Tall seat gets my knees in a position to stand quicker. I always shook my head at the 5' guy doing the same mods to get scratches on his goggles from the handlebars and lift his feet off the boards with the seat......

My mods are to make the sled work for me, but I do see an industry driven by pic or article in the magazine.

 

[Reeb]

A lot of what people don't take into account is the height to the handlebars from the running boards. I checked this out with the XM's and PRO's compared to my Rev and 1M chassis. On the older sleds I have 8 and 10" risers. But the same height on a XM or Pro equals only a few inch(2-4") bar riser.
The sleds are getting taller, which alone, with a higher CG makes them easier to handle.

As far as seats, I never measured that. But I'm not short enough, old enough, or lazy enough to want a low seat. I enjoy having my knees beneath my hips. Puts you in the position of being "on" the sled and not "in" a cockpit. The only time I want a lower seat is when I'm on my RS rat racing down trails trying to look like Hibbert or Pike racing the I-500. Even still, I run the stock seat on that.

Personally I'm a fan of a sled that kinda wants to stay planted. A wider ski stance(40"-ish) gives me a wide balance point. I've noticed with the new sleds that the narrower they get, the smaller the balance point gets. It's easier to get them on edge, but the amount of weight transfer needed is diminished. Which is a good thing for some people, and a detriment for others.

Personally, for me, I enjoy a sled that I can get on edge by putting pressure on the board with my foot. But I don't want that sled to flop over immediately by doing so. Now, all of a sudden I have to go wrong foot forward to counteract the sled going all the way over. It's fun, I do it because it adds an element to my riding. But i weigh enough, and I'm tall enough that I don't always have to be jumping all over the place on my sled.
I don't ride like Burandt, I don't pretend to. But I see a lot of similarities in my riding with Rasmussen. Even tho he's a small guy, he makes the sled work for him a lot better than Burandt in my eyes. He's more conservative with his energy, smoother and deliberate. To each their own, we each have our own style. Sleds in the 90's needed to be customized to fit each and everyone of us, and they still do today.

I mean, in the late 90's we were moving our steering forward, narrowing our plastics, stiffening our running boards, cutting footwells to get our feet further forward, relocating our controls to a more natural position(away from knees, but always off the bars in my case)

There wasn't one thing I didn't do to my '97 Summit or '99 Snopro that I haven't done to my 1M, T-Vec, or Rev.
And whether my next sled is a Viper, PC, or XM, I find myself thinking I'll be doing the exact same mods as I was 15 years ago.

I'm just happy we get to continue customizing our sleds according to preference instead of having to ride stuff stock all the time.

Stock Sucks. Whether you start with a '97 Summit or a '15 XM. Stock Sucks.

 

[OuraySledder]

I love my stock sled. It doesn't NEED a thing, well... I did add a 1" riser for my 6'2" frame.

My first real mtn sled was an '02 800 Edge with a 151 track. I raised the seat, I needed a 6" riser to be comfortable. I did the pipe, can, clutching, exhaust springs, guted airbox, extended to a 159 track, ran carbon fiber trailing arms, cut out the swaybar. Pretty common Edge mods for the time. Great sleds, I had two of them. I went to an M7 after that. Super natural transition for me. Again I adjusted the seat and bar hieghts for comfort and I used a geared down diamond drive when the original bit the dust. Otherwise, it is stock, awesome sled, needed fewer mods than the Edge.

Now with the PRO, it was pretty much perfect out of the box and worlds better than its predecessors. It is super light weight, comes with carbon fiber frame members and belt drive stock. Guys used to drop $30k to have a 420 lb sled, I spent under $10k for similar performance today.

New stock sleds are VERY impresssive stock IMO. I will do a top end this summer for reliability and probably take the opportunity to bump the power a little.

Nothing trendy for me though... Thanks!

 

[Laundryboy]

What really helps perpetuates these fads is whenever someone makes a modification, no matter how good or bad it may be, they talk like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It will enable them to ride like they never dreamed of riding and enable them to go places they never dreamed of going.

 

[Reeb]

What really helps perpetuates these fads is whenever someone makes a modification, no matter how good or bad it may be, they talk like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It will enable them to ride like they never dreamed of riding and enable them to go places they never dreamed of going.

Products in the name of commercialism. Not in the name of progression sometimes.

 

[Laundryboy]

Human nature to not admit you got hosed, I've been guilty of it myself.

 

[The Fourth Wolf]

Mountain sled evolution is driven by two primary considerations: Thrust to Weight ratio and maneuverability. Reliability is certainly on the mind of some guys but overall it's clearly not a major consideration in this segment otherwise Yamaha would dominate.

Chassis rigidity and overall sled ergonomics speak to maneuverability while everything else is either about more thrust or less weight, or a combination of either with maneuverability (i.e. 2 wheel kit).

The first sleds modded for mountains were low and wide and guys figured out if you raised the bars and rode standing up they were far more maneuverable, so everybody had a riser. That drove maneuverability as a big seller and trailing arms gave way to A-arms and sleds got narrower and taller and the CoG was raised to make them easier to throw around.

As sleds and what riders could do on them progressed they changed. For awhile the mantra was lighter, lighter, lighter so designs were scrutinized for ways to cut weight and in that quest for lighter, painted tunnels went away until someone realized snow sticks to raw aluminum pretty well and the sled wrap was born. Now the OEMs are painting tunnels again.

As stand up riding evolved seat's got taller as the motocross crowd began carrying dirt bike ergos over to sleds. As those same motocross guys really started pushing the envelope of freestyle, some realized a taller seat was an obstacle on some tricks and seats inched back down, while in the pure mountain segment more seat equaled more weight for a group that rarely sits anyway, so seats got smaller.

This year BRP is gambling (a bit) on deep snow flotation with their factory 174x3. If they dominate the market tracks will get longer until someone goes too far and sales drop. Who knows? Maybe in 5 years we'll all be riding hyper-performance 136's again?

And so on and so on.

I don't think it's about fashion so much as what we "think" equals performance, and as long as we the sled buying public see these changes as improvements--even if it's going back to an old method--and keep buying new ones, sleds will keep changing.

 

[christopher]

Evolution.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk 2 pro.

 

[rmscustom]

3" tracks.
Unless your more of a straight up rider too much push and not enough spin in most conditions. I think all the praise they get are from people justifying the $1500 they just dropped on it.

Stock sucks
Out of the box these sleds are all amazing. Other than bars for your height it is hard for the average joe to make them better and there is a lot of guys putting mods on that actually make them worse.

 

[Scott]

3" tracks.
Unless your more of a straight up rider too much push and not enough spin in most conditions. I think all the praise they get are from people justifying the $1500 they just dropped on it.

I think it's a legit mod.

I've been on two identical 2013 Pro RMKs, except Sled A was Dynoport piped with stock 163 track and Sled B was bone stock engine with an X3 in a 156".

Sled B has WAY better hook-up and took less time to make a pretty steep 30 second climb in fresh wet set-up powder.

All day long, we saw more ground speed and better hook-up.
It does handle a bit differently, but working on too much push and ski pressure is all in how you set up the skid.

Stock sucks
Out of the box these sleds are all amazing. Other than bars for your height it is hard for the average joe to make them better and there is a lot of guys putting mods on that actually make them worse.

Stock sucks is just an attitude. Yes, there ARE mods that don't help...and maybe even hinder.

 

[Reeb]

When I say stock sucks, I don't mean stock sleds actually suck. There are riders just like Ouray and DPG that think their stock sled is custom tailored to exactly the sled they want. And that's awesome.

Personally, I'd like more power, stiffer chassis, better suspension, and a sled that fits me(ergonomics) which means I have some personalization to do.

Now if I didn't have the means to do such, and riding a stock sled was in the cards, I'd ride em. I got no problem riding stock sleds. I rode demo's for 5 years and was barely allowed to anything other than suspension settings. I had a blast. But I was always helping my customers spend money on what we collectively thought would make the sleds better. Things like stiffer running boards, more power, better tracks, better suspensions, and re-enforced bulkheads/tunnels/bumpers etc etc.

Sleds have been rideable stock since they came out, they are rideable now. Sometimes we just aim to improve in areas we think will be a benefit.

That's not the point of this thread tho. It was to dispell and talk about growing and receeding fads in our industry.

2-Wheel kits - Side by side comparisons have always shown me that 2 inner wheels work better evacuating snow from the skidframe than the standard 3 or 4 wheels.

Billet wheels - Blingin' Billets! Although with the right design I do think the wheels themselves cut up some of the bigger snow clumps in certain snow conditions. I've seen it before but to say it was the design of the wheels is stretching the limits of what I would actually say about it.

BWK - The almighty big wheel kit. Rolling resistance at it's finest. While I've done the whole, rolling sled across shop floor test myself, and seen the results firsthand, I always go back to what a friend(portgrinder) said about a test he did at the UofA concerning rolling resistance. Bigger rear idlers don't always result in less resistance. Instead, the more wheels in general result in less resistance. Now this isn't ground breaking in itself. But he kept the stock 6 3/8" rear idlers and simply added more wheels within the skid. So instead of a suspension void of idlers and using a couple rim sized rear idlers, the answer is simply reduce drag(sliders on trackclips) as much as possible.

Ported tracks - They help. Do they help in all situations? Nope. Is there such thing as too much porting? Definitely. I'll continue to port tracks based on a pattern I think works best for our overall snow conditions. And I do think this also makes the tracks more flexible(easier to bend)

Falling rate suspensions - Great for climbing, a big trend with low slung hillclimbers in the 90's and early 2000's. Shallow angle of attack, easily collapsable, climbed hills like nothing else in the era. Racer's Edge, Mountain Magic, and the entire RMSHA/BCSF circuits subscribed to this design. Ski-Doo thought to introduce the same design to us 5-6 years ago in the XP and failed miserably, ride quality was more important than ability to climb straight up hills.

Coupled skids - Still the standard on trail machines, and for good reason. It works. But something that the OEM's have gone forward and backwards on in the mtn segment for years. Aftermarket skids are the same way. Which is better? Depends on the variables. High horsepower and like to climb? A coupled skid is the way to go. Stockish HP and want a more of a lighter front end feel? Then uncoupled is still the choice for most. Skinz has their Arc design that makes it as easy as flipping a lever and you can swap from coupled to non. Time will tell if other companies think of similar ways to do something similar, or if there is enough of a market for it at all. Holz and Zbros have played with this for years as well.

What else is there we can think of?

 

[Jaynelson]

What really helps perpetuates these fads is whenever someone makes a modification, no matter how good or bad it may be, they talk like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It will enable them to ride like they never dreamed of riding and enable them to go places they never dreamed of going.

Totally....and internet forums, Facebook, etc really spread things to a lot of people very quickly, regardless of whether they are good ideas/practices/parts.

Some guy spends a bunch of money and time to install X. He gets on here and tells everyone how awesome it is. Other people start doing it, towing the same line because now they're invested. If it really catches on, the forums even portray many items as a "given"...."oh you bought sled model ________, you HAVE to do this mod." And people go and do it without even trying it stock to begin with. Maybe stock was better....they'll never know. But now that guy is on here telling everyone how awesome part X is.

It's like people getting suspension settings, bar heights, seat heights, etc, off the internet and not even thinking that the 3 guys giving him advice could have a weight variation of 100lbs, a height variation of a foot, and 2 of 3 have never seen a mountain let alone ridden a snowmobile on one.

I swear someone would ask an internet forum where to set the seat in their new car......and there would be people giving advice, people listening, people telling him the stock seats are junk throw those things out and buy these ones, people telling him how they modded their seat rails to gain more height and the results are life altering. Within hours people are running out to buy Dremel tools and giving some poor basterd behind a parts counter hypertension trying to order seat rails from a 95 Ford Contour because Johnny958 on XYZforum.com said they fit good and were the best seat rails ever made and most shops should have them in stock. He failed to mention he is a master mechanic and happened to have 3 Ford Contours for parts on his property, and all sorts of tools you don't own or know how to use....but by now you've mangled your perfectly good stock seats and you're gonna LOVE the modded version whether you like it or not!

 

[Laundryboy]

"What else can we think of?"

I'm curious about the Nextech float air crossover, side-hill assist system. I can't find any info about it or user reviews, but the idea seems interesting. I just wouldn't spend the money and find out it doesn't work the way it's portrayed.

 

[Jaynelson]

It also really depends how much you like to tinker, as to how many different formulas you are willing to try out. Some people that is their gig....building sleds and vehicles is more or as much the appeal as riding/driving them. As said "stock sucks" and they are changing stuff because that's what they like to do. If it doesn't work out....they'll just change it again. If it does work out....they'll probably change it anyways, because that's what they like to do. Nothing wrong with that...everyone goes about their hobbies differently. These types of guys are often on forums discussing the latest/greatest setups, and people get caught up in the crossfire and don't necessarily understand what they're getting in to. I think that's a big part of the "trend" ebb and flow.

Personally, I am pumped that stock sleds are so great these days that I can buy one and just....go riding. I actually like tinkering and I'm 1/2 assed with a wrench, but I've got way too many hobbies/projects on the go at any given time because I can't say no lol. So I prefer to allocate my sled time to sending it....rather than testing and tinkering. But everyone has a different approach.

 

[Reeb]

"What else can we think of?"

I'm curious about the Nextech float air crossover, side-hill assist system. I can't find any info about it or user reviews, but the idea seems interesting. I just wouldn't spend the money and find out it doesn't work the way it's portrayed.

Like the new age sway bar? I read about it once but wasn't too interested for the type of riding I do. Fast Inc had a cool design back in the Blade era using a shock absorber acting like a sway bar. But it was adjustable. Cool trail riding feature, but once set, I never touched it again for mtn riding.

 

[Reeb]

Personally, I am pumped that stock sleds are so great these days that I can buy one and just....go riding. I actually like tinkering and I'm 1/2 assed with a wrench, but I've got way too many hobbies/projects on the go at any given time because I can't say no lol. So I prefer to allocate my sled time to sending it....rather than testing and tinkering. But everyone has a different approach.

I leave my trucks and bikes 'basically' stock but my sleds and boats....not so much. I know what you're saying about hobbies and projects!

 

[rmscustom]

"What else can we think of?"

I'm curious about the Nextech float air crossover, side-hill assist system. I can't find any info about it or user reviews, but the idea seems interesting. I just wouldn't spend the money and find out it doesn't work the way it's portrayed.

Now I've never been on or around one but IMO huge gimmick. Almost completely collapsing one shock to roll the sled into a hill is a big mistake. What happens when you hit a old track or etc.? Its gonna buck you off or down hill. Big difference between "rolling" a sled into a hill vs getting a sled on its edge into a hill... I have the same opinion about the T-motion as well. lol