(Season 08-09)TY Mileage- tkuss

[tkuss]

I don't know if there is going to be a 08-09 contest or not, but I wanted to start recording my rides every week and this seemed like the best place to post it.

The sleds that I ride are a 06 Apex RTX with a ZX-2 suspension which is mine, while my dad owns a 07 Phazer FX which I ride quite a bit as well.

I forgot to take pictures of the starting mileage for each one, will try to do that next time, but I think the Apex had about 6770 miles starting out and the phazer had around 3600 miles.

The phazer got Simmons skis over the summer, as well as pioneer revalved rear shocks. The Apex has a ZX-2 suspension, C&A Outlaw skis as well as some other random add ons.

I just got back from the first ride of the year, but a few weeks ago I installed the ZX-2 suspension in my Apex

The installation went real smooth and took about 4 hours with a couple of people. The suspension comes with mounting plates which you rivet to the tunnel, to align the plates you use the stock mounting holes so there is no measuring required.

The ZX-2 is a much different suspension than most of the ones out there. All the adjustments besides spring preload are made by changing pin locations on the revolver system.

I haven't messed around with at all yet so I don't know how big of a difference the adjustments make

 

[tkuss]

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

 

[yamahaboy701]

Wow I am jealous Tom. The pictures look awesome, we have to go up sometime.

 

[Coles55]

Looks like fun, a group of us are going this weekend to the same area. Been watching the weather for up there and they are getting another 6-12" by this weekend!

 

[tkuss]

Well this weekends plan was to remove the old monoshock suspension rear mounting plates since the person that bought the suspension needed them. Also I needed to do some testing.

Like I said earlier, the ZX-2 was not living up to how I knew it could perfom. A few people on this site gave me some ideas, mainly saying tighten the track tension. I also had contacted AD Boiving looking for ideas and they recommended lowering the pressure in the Fox Floats.

When I was finally able to put the sled on a stand and check things out, I could see the track tension was very loose.

I tried to tighten the track through the adjusters in the back and everything was screwed up (I did loosen the rear axle bolts). As I was turning the adjusters the track was not moving at all, so I finally just removed the rear idlers to see exactly what I was working with and could see that the adjusters where all out of whack. Luckily in a short amount of time I was then able to get everything all straightened out and tighten up the track.

After doing a couple test runs on the stand, I threw the sled on the trailer and trailered up to Land O Lakes to test things out.

Once I got out on the trails I could tell there was a huge difference over the first couple bumps. The skid was now handling the way I thought it would intially.

I was just behind a groomer so there were not any huge bumps to really test it out. So I decided I would hit one of my favorite trails from Watersmeet to Bruce Crossing to find some rough trails. The trails for the most part were in ok condition.

I finally ran through a section of rough trail and the suspension handled it awesome. I simply could not bottom it out. But at the same time it was not super stiff or harsh at all.

I would try and stop every 10 miles or so to check things out, and make sure that none of the bolts were backing out, like many others with the skid have reported.
Everytime I checked everything was ok.

When the snow gets a bit heavier and deeper it likes to stick to the plastic, which according to AD Boivin should not happen.

I had to make a stop at Bonds Falls to check it out in the winter. It is a pretty impressive falls, it about 50 feet tall and very wide.

Here is it in the summer

After checking out Bond Falls I fueled up in Bruce Crossing and ran about 19 miles of railroad grade to the Bergland area. From there I started heading down a trail that not many have been on. It was a blast, it was ungroomed and like riding 15 miles of singletrack.

At the end of the trail there was a truck blocking the trail off, so I am guessing that trail was not even open yet. Oh well.

I was starting to make my loop back now and things were still going great. The trails were in excellent condition in areas.

But there was also many areas of poor snowcover on the trail.

I then quickly made my way back to Land O Lakes and called it a day.

The day was originally suppose to be a testing day with not many miles put on. And since I was by myself, I did not want to wander to far from the truck. But once I got on the sled I just wanted to keep going. I ended making a 120 mile loop in about 3 hours. With the suspension working great, I can't wait till next weekend to hit the trails again. I am thinking I will try to lower the floats from 60 PSI to 50. I may also play with the revolver settings on the ZX-2. One thing that I did experience which I did not before, is a vibration once I get above 75mph. I know that there are few other that have the ZX-2 with this problem as well, so I will have to try to get that straightened out if possible. I am not to worried about though, as I did not see anything unusual or worn down after the ride.
I only remembered to calculate gas mileage for one fillup, I used 6.3 gallons in 79 miles (12.5mpg). I usally get slightly better than that, the tighter track may be affecting the mileage. If I get some time I may slightly loosen up the track and see if the mileage improves at all.

 

[Viper_Dave]

Did you travel HWY 43 to I 90 and then up? I swear I saw this exact truck and trailer west bound just outside of Beloit last wek. I was headed to Clinton to work on my sled and thought "SHEESH, that should be ME!!"

 

[tkuss]

Nope wasn't me, that truck stays up in Three Lakes all the time.

 

[tkuss]

So I headed up north Thursday for the weekend with the plan being to ride Friday, fool around on Saturday and then head home early Sunday.

Friday rolled around and since the trails in Three Lakes/Eagle River where not in the best shape. 3 of us decided to trailer up to Watersmeet for the day and then head north from there.

We pulled into Watersmeet and there was about 10-12 inches of snow.

The trails were in pretty good shape.

We stopped by Bond Falls again and it froze up quite a bit more since last weekend.

We then continued north to Bruce Crossing and filled up.

We kept heading north and got deeper into the snowbelts. It is pretty amazing how deep the snow gets in a relativily small distance.

We climbed some hills next to the trail which turned out to be pretty easy climbs.

The trails were in great condition from north of Bruce crossing. Here we are by the firesteel bridges near Mass City.

We hit some of the our favorite spots to get off trail and carve it up.

By the time we were done the meadow was ripped up pretty good.

Early season like this and there are still tons of untouched logging roads.

At times I will just head into the woods trying to go where ever I can make it without getting stuck. This is one of my favorite things to do on the sled.

The snowdepth in the woods was nearly waistdeep in places.

Here I got sucked into a tree and ended up stuck which happens quite a bit in the woods.

I have bought a 144" extensions for the ZX-2. I waiting and looking for a good deal on a 1.5" track for it. However, I most likely won't be installing it until summer, seeing has how I still have to do the research on how to swap out a track, and since it is riding season, I like to ride and not wrench on my sled right now.


Here comes my help, coming to help me get unstuck.

After some boondocking on the Keweenaw, we called it a day and headed back to watersmeet to load up and head home.

We put on about 150 miles. I got about 13 miles per gallon. The sled ran great. I am waiting for the day when something goes wrong. I did quite a bit of maintence over the summer, so the only thing I am thinking will happen is the exhaust donuts will burn out some time this season. They were first replaced at 5100 miles and the sled now has about 7100 miles on it.

The phazer consistantly uses about a gallon of fuel less if we drive 50 miles, so it is defiantly good on fuel. The simmons skis get rid of all darting and make the sled feel so much more stable when going down the trail. Also after bumping up the compression on the rear shock, the rear suspension is working great. After the revalve, the suspension is much softer when going slower yet very hard to bottom when pushing it. Also there is much less kickback after going over a bump. All in all, it is working great.

Here is a video of the ride. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu0ega5ECF4

 

[tkuss]

On Saturday we just rode around Three Lakes for the day.

We went riding down the chain of lakes. We can ride for 10 miles in one direction going on about 13 different lakes. Here we are at the end of the chain on long lake.

It snowed for a little bit of the day.

Taking some side trails we able to find our way to Bailey Lake which is really in the middle of no where.

We headed up to Eagle River for lunch, the trails were very poor in some spots and in great condtion in others.

After lunch we shot over to Sugar Camp to make a loop and head back to Three Lakes.

We put on about 100 miles for the day. We left today to about 3 inches of new snow on the ground with supposely more coming. So the trails should be in fair condition in the near future.

 

[Cody]

looks like fun man and that first picture NICE WORK its amazing!
keep the stories comin need em to take my mind of the fact i cant ride because i gotta fix my sled.

 

[tkuss]

We brought the sleds home to southeastern Wisconsin since we just got nailed with a couple good dumps of snow. We probably have 15 or so inches on the ground.

I have never ridden around here so I had no clue what to expect. I rode 50 miles by myself today, and found the trails are 90% farm fields and the other 10% is riding through some small woods.

The winds were blowing hard yesterday, so the fields had some huge drifts in them

It is wierd since in areas there are 5 foot drifts and in other areas it is bare ground. I guess that is what a day of 30mph winds will do.

It is pretty fun flying the through the big drifts in the fields. I did manage to get stuck twice.

Some areas was hard to tell where the trails even where, since all the tracks were covered up.

Here is a shot of some of the trail going through the woods.

The trails were pretty rough today, so I got a good chance to test out the ZX-2 again. I am finding that it loves rough trails, however it is not really an all out jump suspension. It is hard to explain how the suspension works, but the faster you go and the harder you push it, the harder it is to bottom out. But if you hit some small jumps going slower and catch a bit of air the supsension will bottom out. It must have to do with the hi-speed low-speed compression valving of the shocks. I really do like the suspension alot because it a bit more plush at lower speeds, but hard to bottom at high speeds.

My dad, cousin and I are planning to go riding tommorow and possilbly try to ride the kettle moraine forest, or where ever the trails take us.

 

[tkuss]

Merry Christmas everybody. My cousin, dad and I went for a little ride here in southeastern Wisconsin. The plan was to ride to the Kettle Moraine Forest and back which we did. Not much exciting happened. All I can say is that the trails were rough, 1-2 foot moguls everywhere. I bottomed out the ZX-2 many of times. But like I keep saying, the harder you push it the harder it is to bottom out. At slower speeds it bottoms out much easier on the big bumps. Luckily the trails were pure white everywhere with no snirt to be seen. Still I like riding in the north woods much better.

All in all we did about 70-80 miles. Here are some pics from the ride. I am testing out different picture sizes in these last couple posts to see what I like best.

I have the mountain riser on my sled, but also just bought a Rox Pivoting riser to get my bars a bit higher. I have Apex mountain throttle cable incase mine is to short. I will hopefully install them in the next couple days here and I will try to remeber to take some pictures while I am doing it.
Again, merry christmas everybody.
Tom

 

[tkuss]

So while the sled was at my house here in Southeastern Wisconsin over christmas I decided to put my Rox Risers on.

Here is a shot before, with just the mountain riser.

And here is a shot after with the 2" rox pivot risers.

I got the risers on and thought I would just be able to reroute the throttle cable and not have to put on the mountain throttle cable. Everything seemed good, but then I started up the sled and turned the bars all the way to the right and the engine reved up and the TORS kicked in.

My finger is the throttle cable that needed to be replaced with the Mountain throttle cable which is about 2 inches longer

I did not have the proper tools to take my airbox off, so I had to wait till I got up north to swap out throttle cables.

Swapping them out was fairly straight foward, however I adjusted the mountain cable to tight the first time, and once everything was put back together the engine still reved when turning the bars all the way to the right. So I had to rip everything apart again and loosen the cable a bit. After adjusting it a second time, all was good. I like the sled so much better with the bars raised, no more leaning over when standing up.


The warm weather last weekend did not really hurt the trails in northern Wisconsin as they did in the southern part of the state. In southern Wisconsin pretty much all of the 20 or so inches of snow melted leaving behind just the snowbanks. While in the Three Lakes/Eagle river the temps got up into the low 40's, but we only lost 2-3 inches of snow. Leaving about 10 inches of hard crusty snow in the woods.

My family and I went out on a ride monday and we found the trails to be in good condition, especially the more north and west we got.

We stopped at Sayner Pub in Sayner for some lunch.

All in all it was a good day riding.

Tuesday came and my dad and I decided to do some exploring and ended up finding a nice big lake out in the middle of nowhere.

It looks like a good lake for some ice fishing, also as you can tell by the tracks, it looked like someone iced fished a week of so earlier.


We headed back and picked up a few more riders for the end of the day. We headed to a old abandoned ski hill which my parents wanted to see since they have not been seen it for 20 or so years. It makes for some pretty fun riding.

We then rode some ditches for a few miles and called it a day.

The sleds are still running great. I have now got about 7850 miles on the Apex. The Phazer probably has about 4000 total, only 1500 or so on the new motor. I have not adjusted the ZX-2 at all, probably because I am happy with the way it is now. But if I get bored or have some time I will fool around with the settings. Also this last week I got a ticket for not stopping at a stop sign in Eagle River. Oh well, I don't how much it is yet, but the cop said he is going to give the lowest citation possilbe, it may even say that I was chasing wildlife down the trail or something like that. It happened at a stop sign I never stop at because I feel there is no need to stop. The trail goes down a road and then turns into a trail going through the woods, and there is a stop sign where the trail goes from road to woods. I did deserve the ticket because I did not stop. However I will be stopping there now on.

Also this saturday I am leaving to head out west to ride Togwotee Wyoming for 3 days. Right now there is a 6 foot base with 2-3 feet of snow expected over the next couple days, so I am very excited. We are staying at Turpin Meadow Ranch and renting 09 M8's. I will defianlty report back with pictures when I get back next week.

 

[yamahaboy701]

Tom have fun at Togwotee! Let me know how the snow is. Remember we have one extra spot at our cabin if you want to stay with us for 5 more days at togwotee mountain lodge.
I will have to take lots of photos and try to compete with you photo skills

 

[tkuss]

I just got back from togwotee and had the time of my life. I will do more of a writeup when I have a bit more time.
Here is a picture taken on our last day there.