Season 2009-10 TY Mileage- rxrider- Maine, Quebec, Norway

[rxrider]

Most trails are now closed down..... it's a pity because it's still snowing, we have fresh snow on the ground down at sealevel and lots of snow in the mountains. Luckily select trails are still open until May 9. and there are even a few mountain trails that will be open until May 18. We have a late spring this year...... yeeehaaa we're still riding This means I will be out for one or two or more rides this season

 

[rxrider]

Ride: 22 - Herding reindeers with the RX-1 Turbos. Last ride of the season.

Date: May 15.
Sled: '03 RX-1 Turbo
Distance: 72 kms or 45 miles
Start odo: 14851 kms or 9230 miles
End odo: 14924 kms or 9275 miles

Statistics:

'09 RS Venture GT
Start odo: 7539 kms or 4686 miles
End odo: 10140 kms or 6302 miles
Mileage so far: 2601 kms or 1616 miles

'08 Apex RTX
Start odo: 2436 kms or 1514 miles
End odo: 2895 kms or 1799 miles
Mileage so far: 459 kms or 285 miles

'07 Apex RTX - Brother-in-laws sled
Mileage so far: 16 kms or 10 miles

'03 RX-1 Turbo
Start odo: 14611 kms or 9080 miles
End odo: 14924 kms or 9275 miles
Mileage so far: 313 kms or 195 miles

Total mileage 2009-2010: 3389 kms or 2106 miles


The last ride of the season!!! To sum it up; I rode a lot in 9 days in Quebec and Maine, the ride of my life. I didn't get to ride as much as I like at home :-( Many things came in the way.... and family always come first, then sledding.

I finally got all systems on my turbo sled up and running, my sled got tuned to about 95% - ended up running it at 20 lbs. I have held her WOT for a total of 50 miles or 80 kilometers, both lakeracing and hill climbing. I missed on the carb needles by a notch, raised two while 1 had been enough, it's running rich at low trottle low boost. Will have to set the needles at the # 3 position (stock, in the middle). The meth system is tuned to start at 6 lbs, it's spraying at 100% capasity past 16 lbs. AFRs are a little to rich up top and I have slight misfireing at WOT when she dips down to 11.5-11.6 at WOT, above 11.7 she's running clean and crisp. But I don't care to go down on the main jets cause I was riding in the 40s F or +10C.

And now for my last ride of the season.


Start odo.

At home in rxrider's Turbo Garage, loading up the turbo in my trailer.

Ready to leave.

I met up with my friend downtown before driving up north out the Porsanger fjord to Kokelvfjellet. We were invited to join in on some Reindeer herding up in the mountains. It's the time of the year when Reindeer's having calves, our job for the day was to move the herd together and away from the borders of the reindeer owners territory. He does it to avoid mixing his herd with the neighbours herd, awful lot of work if two herds get mixed up.

Ready to hit the mountains searching for the Reindeers. My black turbo sled, and my friend Mikkel's Blue turbo sled.

There's still some snow down in the valley close to the Reindeer owners cabin.

We're about 5 miles or 8 km into the mountain plains, still winter at full even it's spring snow all over.

We rode a while gradually climbing to altitude. The higher up we got the closer to the clouds we got. When we stopped for some ice fishing on a small lake we were completely surrounded by clouds.

While fishing on the lake we heard two sleds passing us close by, they rode by us without seeing us or we seeing them. After a while we could hear them turn around and all of a sudden they arrived out of the dense fog. It was two other reindeer owners.

We caught 17 fish, mainly Arctic Char, small but eatable. I only got one of them LOL, not much of a fisherman.

After the fishing was done and the weather started to clear up a bit we went to search for the reindeer herd. We drove for a while before we found the heard, it was spread widely around. The main herd was were it was supposed to be, but there was a lot of small herds and stray animal around. Off we went gathering them together and driving them towards the main herd.

We drove around in the area to get a view of where the reindeers was and if there were any stray reindeers. The reindeer owners goal was to gather as many of the stray reindeers together and drive them towards the main herd. The turbo sleds without silencers was of great help to the reindeer owner, it didn't take much effort to make the stray reindeers go in the right direction.

I gathered some reindeers together into this little pack and drove them towards the main herd. Pic shot at a distance.

Zoom.

I drove closer to turn them more to the west.

Pretty close... All reindeers here are females ready to give birth to a calf. And I had them going in the perfect direction

My friend Mikkel is a far better herdsman than me (this was my first time), he have owned a herd of reindeer way back, he got out the the business 10-12 years ago.

With the reindeer going towards the main herd I rode up onto this small peak and shot a few pics while searching around for more reindeers. I above the clouds on top of this peak. This pic is shot towards the north east.

This pic is shot towards the north, the main herd is in the left of the pics down in the valley, the herd cannot be seen in this pic, too far away.

My sled just below the peak.

This how the plains looks like at lower altitude, snow is starting to melt away down there. Up at altitude it's still a lot of snow.

The Arctic ocean, the fjord Revsbotn in the distance.

Me and Mikkel up on another peak searching for reindeers.

Mikkel.

Me.

The reindeer owner were satisfied with the work done and we headed back to his cabin. Before calling it the day we rode around a little more and shot a few pics from anouther peak.

On the slopes above the cabin we drove thru a mashland, the snow was saturated with melt water, when we made the track thru the mashland it was like pulling the cork out of a bottle of Champagne, water came flooding down the tracks we made, hahahaha little kids playing with water. I was feeling more like 4-5 not much like 45 hahaha LOL.

Done for the season.

The reindeer owners cabin. His wife served us a traditional sami dish called Bidos, it's cooked reindeer meat with potates, onion and vegetables. It's damn good, I wanted more than I could possibly eat.

The reindeer owner invited us to go riding with him the next day, unluckily I was not able to do so. I had to stay at home with wifey and the kids......... Anyway I'm happy with the day up in the mountains, it was quite an experience for me herding reindeers


End trip.

End odo.

The season is hereby over, May 15th was my last day of riding.
I got a total of 3389 kms or 2106 miles this season, not as much as I had hoped for but more than my average. My kids are growing up and I guess I can have them with me more for the years to come

Have a nice summer, we're closing in on Haydays, time to start modifying our sleds.

 

[APEX 06]

Looks like you still have snow. Could ride some more, but it looks like you had a good year.

 

[rxrider]

Temps have been in the high 60s F to low 70s F or 20C to 23C since May 16th, streams and rivers are flooding like crazy, snow are leaving very fast even at altitude. I'm done for the season even if it may have been possible to ride for a few more days. It would be hard to get to snow, a lot of riding on bare ground, rocks and so on....

 

[youngdman]

ride

I know this post is old but............Ahh I love the "County" Sounds like you guys had the ride of a lifetime when it was all over. I would love to do that some day.


EDITED by Moderator
Please do not Quote my enourmously huge posts LOL it clutters my ride reviews.....

Jan-O
rxrider

PS - I have more pics to post from the County shot this last season. I will finish off the post so day... I promise. Planning for my 2013 ride in the county has started.

 

[rxrider]

BTW - welcome to the site
Please add your location in your user profile as it's a site requirement that you do so, thanks.

Jan-O
rxrider
TY Management Team

 

[le700]

I just found this thread. It was a good read. Did you go back to maine?

 

[youngdman]

Hey when you find out the dates of your 2013 ride in Maine lets us know maybe we can meet up someplace on the trails and say hi. We usually run out of the Jackman area riding towards towards Moosehead Lake, Pitston Farm and The forks but never know. I liked to ride from Jackman to Ft Kent some time.

 

[rxrider]

I have been riding with my good friend Bob Davis and his friends every February since 2010.

The 2013 ride is planned for and I'm leaving home on February 25, planning on staying in Maine to March 7-9 or so.

Last year we rode south to Mount Katahdin, past Matagamon. Great snow in the middle part of Maine last season