Scratchers are a fantastic idea for saving sliders. IMHO work better than larger wheels, if you can find a good place to mount the scratchers and get a good snow spray back onto your skid. I use both ski scratchers and Slide Kicks cable scratchers.
But lots of guys are running largert wheels too. Cracking a rail or loosing a wheel are possible ramifications of doing this because you are effectively removing a lot of the weight off of your sliders and transferring them to wheels instead. Thats a lot of load/ stress onto the wheels, the bearings, the mounting hardware, and ultimately also the rails. However, many guys run large wheels and all they suffer from is less slider wear. But anything is possible out on the trail (Or is Apex 06's case, out in the trees I bet ;-) )
There are lots of options out there for larger wheels. Excell X wheels, Ski Doo or Polaris wheels with mounts to fit our rails, Standard wheels with an off set mount like Pioneer sells are just a few options.
