Mototrax does free fit kit swaps even if you buy the kit used.
http://moto-trax.com/special-programs/
http://moto-trax.com/whats-new/#
The 2017 ski.
Which snow bike kits is best bang for buck?
- Thread starter Jecks32
- Start date
Mototrax does free fit kit swaps even if you buy the kit used.
http://moto-trax.com/special-programs/
http://moto-trax.com/whats-new/#
The 2017 ski.
P
portgrinder
Well-known member
Yes if BANG also means SNAP i would stay away from the earlier TS. maybe their new ones are better but man did i do a pile of wrenching on my 2013 TS.
Yeti is night and day difference. Make sure the bolts are tight and ride it.
Lets hope its all just the usual merger transition jitters .... restructuring into a big company ALWAYS has teething troubles... hope is once they all get acquainted it will be best of both.
Not affecting the actual product quality... is it?
I keep hearing alot on forums Mototrax solves alot of issues with timbersled... exactly what those issues are is alot harder to find.. and how did they fix them.
I also hear that the ride more like a dirt bike... thing is snow isn't dirt... what does this mean!? On the trail I kinda get it .. off the trial in deeper snow... I want some convincing.
For example are they just talking about how the Track tilts or is there more to it... I can adjust a timbersled to similarly increase tilt.. I haven't checked if the yeti can as well. Sure it probably makes cornering on the trail more bike like but it makes steep side hills a pain if you do.
Also that "edge" you get when it doesn't tilt has its own advantages and actually is preferred by some riders by adding a bit of snowmobile like handling into the mix.
I'm all ears to details not slogans... sorry to target Mototrax at the moment is not really just them just a broader issue the sudden increase in choice on offer.
Love to hear reports on how they ride... strengths and weaknesses... issues... long term owner reports etc. stuff like this below helps more then slogans...
Ride-ability
I have both a Yeti and Timbersled snowbikes... opinions vary which one rides better on the day... there are a lot of Co-factors that make it dam difficult to determine what is the better riding kit all round from one test ride it takes at least a whole season and some effort to setup some sort of testing process.
For example lets focus just on the the front ski as it has a BIG impact to first impressions. Some days the yeti ski rocks... others the timbersled. Makes sense ...different skis for different snow. But that doesn't make one kit better then the other... especially as the front ski is easy to swap over .... once you spend the time to figure out what snow for what ski works best it would become a non issue. Over the course of the season my observations from people on tours was love / hate / indifferent regarding the front ski depending on the snow.. Timbersled ski was more of a steady all rounder no one hated it. For Yeti responses ranged from awesome this sooo much better (Very deep light powder) to this sucks soo bad (Spring /Crust) ... others days not a huge difference.. but in general more polarising for the Yeti.
Testing the track... well you would really have to bolt the same front ski to both tracks and compare to remove what I think is a significant variable. To accurately rate this would be quite a project.... you really need identical bikes and retest on the full range of snow conditions. For example we have two identical YZ450FX same everything ST120 on with / one without TSS. There is now way to tell these bikes apart visually once you add a bit of snow build up near the TSS / Strut. Perfect test setup... results... deep powder ... soft base early season sink up to your waist snow. IMPOSSIBLE to tell the difference... after a few hours swapping bikes... no one in the group testing had any idea which bike was which until we cleared the snow away from the TSS/ Strut. But once the base compressed a bit..mid season.. and by spring... there was definitely a preference for TSS. Given the significant added cost of TSS especially across multiple bikes and since this was its first year on the market I was really keen to see if it was worth it. From my observations...Yes it is but it took time and effort for just to review this one single detail.
So these two examples of testing are a very narrow focus... and still don't tell me which kit is better overall in a unbiased manner.
Other factors beyond ride-ability.
Design / Engineering / Quality
Metal welded frames - All WILL fail eventually from cyclic loads.. usually at the weld... the longer the kit has been on the market the more reports you will hear. But only if you hear ALOT of reports is it an issue.
The more engineered the flex and better the manufacturing quality the longer the duty cycle of a metal frame will be!..
Carbon is more susceptible to failure from impact damage. The chassis gets its strength from its shape... certain zones of that shape are more critical then others... damage to a critical area is... critical!... what scares me is the carbon... we all know it.. they know... its the elephant in the room hence the 2yr carbon guarantee to sooth customers fear. That said carbon life is not impacted from cyclic load... so with no damage it should outlast metal every-time... but time will tell real world results.
Again these are just two examples...
Tests could also be done similar to those dynos results in magazine..... how much power at the drive ... versus power at the track.. % loss vs speed for example. Chain versus belt and moving mass arguments ended with real numbers. (NO Im not an engineer I just worked with them!)
Service / Maintenance
Chain tensioning...
Primary Chain - ugh painful on both timbersled and yeti. Why no spring chain tensioner!.. In 2016 with TSS this become a critical issue.
Timbersled simple fix - slip an old valve spring over the bolt adjustment on the idler sprocket - this lets you keep the chain tensioned and back off the stopper so its doesn't get too tight as the TSS does it thing.
Yeti.. 2016... stupidly complex process to tighten the chain versus using a simple idler sprocket. You have to shift the entire tack rear ward to tighten the chain!. 2017 fix available but yes you still need to move the entire track to tension the chain but not as often due to spring tensioner system!, Also needed due to their new "TSS" style suspension.
Why so important.. well with TSS and now yeti's version of TSS chain tension is much more critical ... chain tension varies as the track pivots with the extra suspension movement... too tight the chain snaps!.. slightly too tight.. extra wear on the bearings in the bikes transmission should make you nervous about getting it right.
Again small example of things each kit owner needs to live with ...
Company Profile / History / Brand Loyalty
Timbersled - the original... they have the experience... made more mistakes and learnt alot of lessons... this is a good thing.. a very good thing... experience enables you to learn alot that engineering alone may not even have thought about as an issue.
Yeti - I love what Yeti has brought to the snowbike market... a highly technical designed and engineered product... its a bold product... definitely riskier approach but if it pays off I think its great and will drive the market forward and with polaris behind timber-sled alot of good things are in the future of snowbiking.
The Other Guys.. Mototrax / ArticCAT / etc - need to bring some value proposition to the table that isn't me too or just price.
Mototrax - don't hide your value proposition in a FAQ... Show it... test videos of how your suspension behaves versus the competition.. lots of examples of suspension tuners doing this one on youtube.
https://youtu.be/9LbT495IiWQ
Hmm .. How is more surface contact better then an edge on steep sidehills as stated in the FAQ. It doesn't work that way on skis / snowboards. It doesn't hold with my personal understanding or experience on snow which admittedly is limited.
In short if you are going after performance angle as a product differentiator you need to demonstrate it.
ArticCAT - hmmm after some initial cool dedicated snowbike... it now looks to be a standard bike and kit from two other manufactures... with branded plastic and decals. Dedicated snowbike... great opportunity to fix the conversions issues... Im thinking air-filter mods and enginer temp management here. Top of my list of things a dedicated snowbike should bring to the table. Any developments like this in the product that actually make it a dedicated snowbike instead of a bike with no wheels for the summer.
Sooo
How does some poor bastard choose which kit to buy... hehe... well there aren't any "consumer shootout type results" yet that prove much of anything at the moment. So test rides and word or mouth... also look at company history... Price should come in at the tail end of the decision... really the amount of $$$ you will spend on the bike / gear / maintenance / transport etc... in addition to the snowbike kit the price difference isn't as much in the big picture.
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Story was last spring that at Jackson hole a guy on the mototrax was the only snowbike (and the first one ever) to straightline the hillclimb event (he won) and to attribute all the credit to the rider seems a little aggressive.
Other than that the machined parts with splines and such (mototrax) vs welded tube, tractor style pillow block bearings and plasma cut "precision" (Timbersled) seems to me a vast difference in quality/ potential longevity.
The cmx seems overpriced but well built.
Yeti a step farther in the same direction.
The camso kit being heavy seems to nearly eliminate itself. (Plus its fugly)
(I don't have a dog in the fight just based on studying of a 2016 st timbersled) in person and internet research of all the rest.
My .02
Summer hillclimbs.
https://vimeo.com/181287626
Other than that the machined parts with splines and such (mototrax) vs welded tube, tractor style pillow block bearings and plasma cut "precision" (Timbersled) seems to me a vast difference in quality/ potential longevity.
The cmx seems overpriced but well built.
Yeti a step farther in the same direction.
The camso kit being heavy seems to nearly eliminate itself. (Plus its fugly)
(I don't have a dog in the fight just based on studying of a 2016 st timbersled) in person and internet research of all the rest.
My .02
Summer hillclimbs.
https://vimeo.com/181287626
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C
capulin overdrive
Well-known member
Regardless of brand loyalty, and conjecture on build quality/designs, it's going to be a great season for snowbiking. Be a few guys with a Mototrax on a hill near you, and hopefully be some real world ride reports on the Camso as well.
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