how early have you begin to ride this season ???

[towing]

We begin the season in the north of Lanaudière, Quebec on the 30 november 08 with very good conditions. It was a record for us this year to start our season on groomed trails in november !!! We parked the trailer at l'auberge La Glacière ride in direction of l'Auberge Le Cabanon in St-Zenon. Trail had been groomed in the night and was handsome...

The trails were so beautiful that we arrived at the Cabanon really soon so we decided to continue and go lunching at St-Michel des Saints. There was few rocks in the big hills just before the St-Michel village but not too bad (we were in november after all !!!)

After lunch, we headed back to the Cabanon and went in the Mastigouche Park. We took a secondary trail (orange trail on the map) that link between the #345 trail and the #350 near Koubec. The conditions were amazing !!!

And we arrived at Koubec (pourvoirie Mastigouche)

We next take the last strech to La Glacière to go back to the trailer... It was the end of the day and the fresh new snow trail began to suffer a little bit from the traffic but it was still a perfect day for us...

It give us a beautiful 125 miles ride to open the season...

I had cheated a little bit few weeks earlier to see how it was... I was with the wrong vehicule

No, it wasn't groomed at that time but it was looking good

So, it give us more than 2.5 months of riding this season

I hope to be able to continue until april...

And you ????

Alain

 

[yamiboost]

We were late getting snow here this year not sure the exact date of my first ride but it was like first week of december. However we ride till earily may i had my last ride on may 10th last year.

 

[Daranello]

NOV 26th 2008

Well boys today was my first ride with the X-TX just west of Sudbury ON. I'm coming of a 2007 Attak (Apex LTX)

15 Minute warm up and first start

First lets talk about my 2 main worries about buying this sled.

1st. Would there be egough top end?
2nd. Fuel range

Well at first (short burst) top speed was around 88mph (speedo) but as the day progrest and as the motor started to losen up the top speed I got on the snowcoverd rode was 104 mph (speedo)
So far I'm very happy, yes the F7 had more top end but I killed him in the mid range.

Now for fuel range....ok condition were sticky and the sled was new....but I need a bigger tank fast

LOW FUEL LIGHT ON AT 76 Miles

OUT OF GAS at 88 Miles

The Sled did haven build up lots of snow in the skid something my Attak never did, good thing for lube. but also built up allot of snow on the rear of the running boards

Now for the ride! AMAZING this is a point and shot sled, the snow ruts from the loging truck didn't take the XTX of course, while my friends on the F7 and the Apex where all over the rode getting push around

End to a Great day, considering its still November at a 107 Miles....
Can't wait to get on her again!

Oh, and I don't miss the Attak one bit

Power was Great, she would lift her skis and 50mph....something my attak could never do.

Some more pixs enjoy

UPDATE, light snow -6c soft loose snow pack (slow conditions)

my XTX was hitting 99-100mph speedo (95.3 mph GPS) 4-5mph error

Same rider on an Apex GT 112 Speedo (99 mph GPS) 13mph error

and yes he has a very strong running GT has hit 122 on GPS.\\

so we are 3.7 mph differance on top end tonight

I was even with apex RTX out there but we didnt GPS him

on a drag race we were the same out of the hole, but his mid range was killing me and our top end were close he was just slowly pulling on top end.

My best top speed so far was 111mph speedo (106 MPH GPS)

So far my biggest fear coming from an Attak was missing Top end, so far I'm very happy cause my attak was slower than the GT I raced tonight...again very happy with the top end so far....

BTW I have 500miles on the sled and its stock other than 114 Studs

 

[horkn]

awesome write up!

I started my season over New years weekend. And apparently it has pretty much ended as of a couple days ago, right before my next 3 day weekend this weekend. It sux, because as a newly unemployed person, I was really looking forward to being able to stay up at the cottage a week, and pile the miles on. Unless things change, my season might be over with around 500 miles this year.

 

[Ported Hornet]

I started the first weekend in December, have been to both the Western and Eastern UP. Pretty awesome year expect the current warm up we are in, been in the upper 50's the last couple days.

 

[buddhahead]

First weekend in December in the eastern U.P. I need to check and see if they have any snow left

 

[Yamanator]

first weekend in Dec, rode out of Houghton Lk Mi all the way up to Charlevoix and back. 270 miles round trip, and thank God that Mark (mdkuni) was with us, none of us had ever been up there before and the trails are not marked all that great through some towns. The Supercharged Warrior ran awesome and have since stepped up to a 07 Attak. Praying for snow now, hope this is not the end of a great year.......

 

[tkuss]

Here is my first ride of the Year. December 6th I believe.
If interested I am doing a mileage log, check it out here.

http://www.ty4stroke.com/viewtopic.php?t=64912



Now for the good stuff.

I decided to head up to the U.P this weekend to get my first ride in. Our family owns a place in Three Lakes Wisconsin, so we just trailer up to the U.P, ride, and then come back all in one day.

We decide to head to Mass City as a starting point. The closer we got, the deeper the snow got. We arrived at about 9 and started unloading the sleds.

We were meeting some other people up there as well, and while they were unloading I couldn't help but get out on my sled a bit and check things out. I was expecting the snow in mass city to be a foot or snow deep, but once getting out I realized it was a bit deeper

Again these shots are only a few hundred feet from the parking lot.

The snow was much deeper than expected so I knew we where in for a good day. Once everybody got ready, we started riding and carving up the powder right beside the trail

We then made our way over the firesteel bridges.

We were heading north and the more north we got, the deeper the snow got. We decided to ride some powerlines, and once the first hill came everybody was getting stuck.

Here is me almost getting run over by the phazer

After climbing a bit, we continued north and found some meadows to play in. Again the snow was Deep, nobody thought we would be in this much powder.

Now the snow was so deep that some of the sleds were sucking it in under the hood and the belts were slipping. The Apex went through it great, no snow was getting on the clutches and it was not bogging like some of the other sleds because of deep snow. The phazer on the other hand would bog and kind of sputter when carving through the deep snow. The phazer went through the deep snow pretty well, there were a number of times I thought for sure it was going to get stuck, but it just kept chugging along and kept moving. The power of the Apex makes it a much better deep powder machine than the phazer though. Also I feel the Apex is much easier to carve than the Phazer, although I ride the Phazer only a few miles a day compared to the Apex, so I am defiantly more use to the Apex.

We headed up to Krupps Mini Mart for lunch and a rest and started heading back south down the trail again. On the way back, we again found some great off trail riding.

Here I drove down a very steep small hill and the front of the sled just ran into the ground. The left ski was caught under a branch, luckily I had my new HMK shovel with the saw in the handel which I thought would break very quick, but it actually turned out to come in handy and it worked pretty good.

After some more powder riding we continued down the trail

Half the group called it good for the day (they live very close), while those of us who drove hundreds of miles wanted to keep riding. So we found some untouched logging roads with 2 feet of fresh powder

The end of the day was near so we hit the trails for the last hour or so before dark and went to some of our favorite spots.

We then headed back and called it a day, tired and exhausted.

Everything went great, nothing broke, and the powder was super deep so it was a great day and well worth the drive.
I loved the ZX-2, was very similar to the Monoshock which I did not expect. It was supersmooth, but still bottomed on some bumps where the Mono would have. I thought it was suppose handle the ruff stuff awesome and be near impossible to bottom. I think I can get it to be soft yet hard to bottom, I have just got some research and tuning to do. It did handle very well though, the way it was set up did not lift the inside ski in the corners at all. The phazer was great with the Simmons skis. There is no more darting which makes the sled so much more predictable and fun to ride. Also the revalved shocks did smooth out the ride, but was still bottoming. So at the end of the day we cranked the preload up to the highest it can go and it was better but still bottomed. After the ride we raised the rear shock compression, so in the next ride we will see how big of a difference that makes.

Overall is was a great weekend. The Apex went 77 miles using 7.2 gallons (10.7 mpg). While the phazer went 72 miles using 5.3 gallon (13.5 mpg), keep in mind this was a day of deep powder riding.
Here is some video of the ride http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSXLamer1aE

 

[92vwgti]

november 12th for me in the mont valin region, a nice 300kms of 12-24inches or powder..we mostly broke trail on logging roads.

.

 

[YamahaOutlaw]

First ride this year was 12/12...which is the earliest the sled has touched snow in a looooong time.

 

[towing]

Wow guys, very nice pics

Alain

 

[cat hunter]

Last weekend in november here in western Quebec.