Snowmobile Running Board Washouts

When I bought my first snowmobile that I personally owned it came with Wasatch Recreational Products running board washouts.


They were GREAT!!!  Snow would fall right through.  This meant that I never had to worry about losing my footing due to snow buildup.

Then one day another sled presented itself which was too good of a deal to pass up.  I sold my sled with the WRP running boards to my dad, and bought the new sled.  It has stock running boards.  I road last season, and I was constantly kicking snow with my feet to get rid of build up.  It was annoying, and quite frankly a little dangerous.  Why was it dangerous? Because I would jump over the seat to ride wrong foot forward, and slide off the running board, and ultimately fall off the sled.  Now this didn't happen often, but it did happen. 

So I set out to buy running board washouts for my new sled.  I looked at the WRP boards first... they were $400+.  Too expensive. I really like the look of Skinz Airframes, and the reviews are great.

I looked them up and they are about as much as the WRP's.  I decided I could possible fabricate my own.  After designing up a set on solidworks, and getting a bill of materials I figured I would need a little less than 20' of tubing to build my own.  Chromolly is about $9.50 a ft.  So rounding up, they would cost me $200 raw materials alone.  Then i figured another $50-100 in powder coating them. So I decided that my labor to fab them up wasn't worth the $100 - $150 savings.

I looked into modifying the 2013 Polaris Pro's running boards to fit my ski doo, but that wasn't going to be possible once I really looked into it. 

There are much cheaper insert solutions available, but I don't really like the look, and they don't clear away the snow as well as the WRP's or Airframes.  Also deep down I really didn't want to go with an insert.

Eventually after weeks of research and planning I found what I ultimately bought. 

Technically it is an insert, but It is a little different than other inserts.  it is made of billet Aluminum.  It also cuts away all of your running board, and reuses the outside rail only.  I also got a good deal on them from www.KaNPowersports.com.  They cost right about in the middle of the insert price point, and the full running board replacement price point.  They came in the mail today.  I will document the installation and write about it here.  I am excited...





Thanks for reading,
DPS

I miss snowmobiling

I will admit that even though this blog is called Discuss Power Sports.  I am an avid snowmobiler.  I love it more than all the other power sports.  Don't get me wrong, I really love them all.  However, Snowmobiling is always on my mind.

Just recently I decided to buy a down hill mountain bike helmet for snowmobiling.  Ok, ok, all you naysayers hear me out.  I know that mountain bike helmets are not Snell approved, but there is a lot of independent tests out there that prove that the Snell rating is really good if you are traveling in excess of 150 mph, but detrimental if going any slower anyways.  A lot of those independent studies recommend buying a DOT approved helmet only.  The helmet I bought is the SixSixOne Comp Shifted.  It comes very very close to the exact regulations of DOT approval.  So the other thing that comes into play is the kind of riding I do.  If you look at the spedo on my videos you will notice that I am only traveling on average about 9 MPH on my snowmobile.  Downhill mountain bike racers can reach speeds of 45+ MPH, and this helmet is rated to handle those kinds of impacts.

It would be nieve for me to think that we are going 9 MPH all the time.  That just isn't true.  Usually on the trail we average about 35 MPH and go as fast as 60 MPH on short bursts.  But lets face it, if you crash at 60 MPH chances are you are going to be so mangled you may not live anyways.  It is just part of the thrill I guess.

Why would I buy a mountain bike helmet you ask?  Well I have two very good reasons.  It only weighs 2lbs, and it only cost $60.  To get a 2 Lb motorcycle helmet they are well over $400, and I just didn't want to spend that much.  I went to a motorcycle store and weighed all their carbon fiber helmets that came in under $200.  The lightest one was made by Corona, and it wasn't even carbon fiber.  It did not have a Snell rating, and it was only $80.  But it still weighed 2.3 lbs.  I was surprised to see the full carbon and Kevlar helmets coming in even heavier than that.

Anyways my mind was made up after weighing all the motorcross helmet competition and studying the different test ran on the SixSixOne vs. a motorcycle helmet, and seeing how similar they are.
    

And for those who itch to do anything involved in snowmobiling, here is a video of one of our trips last year. Enjoy...



Thanks for reading...
DPS

better late than never

 The title to this post has to do with two things. First, I am sorry for not updating the blog in a while. Work has been crazy. So I say better that I start reposting on here late than never. Second, today we had a great ride on the snowmobile. Last week it was like 60° and the snow was almost melted completely off the road. This week it decided to really dump yesterday and today. It was one of the best rides of the season even though it is officially spring now. We were riding on about 2' of fresh fluffy powder.     It was a ton of fun even though we where socked in most the day.

Below is a quick video if me from last week. Hope you like it.


  Thanks for reading,
DPS

Getting back into the groove

I have been having trouble lately finding extra time in my day to write something to the blog. I am sorry. I am working on as project at work that has been requiring a lot of my attention and time. By the time I get home the last thing I want to do is turn on the computer. I hope you understand.  The project should be done in a month or so. Then I will be able to focus again on the blog, and forum, and YouTube videos.

Thanks for your interest,
DPS

Why wear protective gear?

Story as related by Dooradical.  You can find his profile at www.DiscussPowerSports.com. He has been a member there for a while. His story is as follows:

As many of you know I was bating around the idea of buying knee guards for some time.  I always thought to myself I have never needed them in the past, so why would I need them now.  I knew however that thinking that way was naive and kind of stupid.  I finally decided that I needed some.  This decision was helped by the fact that in 2005 my older brother crashed into a deep ditch and shattered his knee cap.  He also wrecked the rental sled too.

Well this last Christmas my wife bought me some knee guards.  They aren't anything really special.  They only cost $20, but they easily paid for themselves last Friday.

We decided that it had been a couple of weeks since we had taken my dad out snowmobiling with us.  My dad really enjoys going, but due to his age he has a hard time keeping up with his sons.  So last Friday we decided to go to Hardware Ranch in Utah.  It is a great place to go and ride trails.  They groom them, and there are is a lot of pretty scenery to enjoy.  They even have an Elk reserve during the winter.  You can go on sleigh rides right though the middle of the herd.  It is pretty sweet.  The only down side is this year not a lot of snow has fallen at Hardware Ranch.  As a matter of fact in some placed on the trail we where riding on rocks.  But non the less it was a perfect place for my dad.  And the fact that there wasn't any powder deterred my brother and I from getting off the trail in a spot that my dad would have a hard time in.  So all in all it worked out.

When we were getting all our gear on, I had to decide if I wanted to wear my knee guards or not... after all we were just going to be on trails so why would I need them, Right?  I decided to put them on anyways. Boy am I glad I did.  We got into this bowl with a steep hill climb that usually is covered nicely in snow.  Don't get me wrong, there was snow there, but not much.  However there was enough to have covered up a ditch that ran across the valley.  I decided I wanted to go climb the steep hill.  I stopped about 20 yards from the base of the hill.  Then I waited for my brother to catch up to me.  Once he was there I started going up the hill.  As I picked up speed I all of the sudden found myself  off of my sled and feeling pain in my knee, neck, and back.  My knee hurt the most.  It felt like I kneed a brick wall.  It was a dull throbbing pain.  It is hard to explain, but I knew that if I had not been wearing my knee guards that the dull throbbing pain would have been much worse.  I think I probably would have ended up like my brother, and in the hospital with a shattered knee cap.  I am glad I didn't.

The sled was not hurt in the accident as far as I know.  It just abruptly stopped the sled, and my bodies momentum carried.

The video is hard to see exactly what happened, but I will show you anyways.



Thanks for reading and watching,
DPS

Such a Cold Ride

We went out on January 11th to see if we could find any of that fresh snow that had just fallen.  To say the least it was cold and stormy up there all day.  The cold really didn't bother me until the end of the day when we had to ride the trail home.  Anything that had gotten wet absolutely froze stiff.  For me that was my gloves.  They didn't get wet inside, but the outside was damp.  On the trail I started noticing that my fingers where getting a bit cold.  I turned on my snowmobiles hand warmers.  It helped a little, but not enough.  Soon my hands were stinging.  I eventually couldn't take it anymore.  I stopped on the trail and with frozen fingers I unzipped my tunnel bag (Painful) and got out my spare gloves.  Once I put them on I instantly felt warmer.  Soon my hand warmers felt like they where actually doing something and the rest of the ride to the car was pleasant.

Lessons learned on this trip -
1.  I have never needed to change my gloves before, and was seriously contemplating why I keep a spare set in my bag.  Now I know that it is indeed a necessary item.
2.  Extra goggles is a must.  My goggles did fine the entire day.  Until In the video you will see a part where I am climbing a steep hill (toward the end).  Before climbing this hill I took my helmet off, and the inside of my goggles fogged up instantly.  Usually in this situation I can just fan the goggles with my hand, or swing my helmet through the air to clear up the fog.  On this occasion the fogged lenses was compounded by the frigid cold air.  The fog condensed, and instantly froze.  Ice formed on my lens.  I climbed up the hill with very low visibility.  This is dangerous to say the least.
3.  Cary a GPS.  With the low visibility at the end of the trip we almost got lost.  Luckily one person in our group kept a good sense of where he was.  Thanks PinNwiggle!  We were on top of a ridge that we usually follow over and down to the trail.  because of the low visibility we ended up one ridge over from where we needed to be.  When we started following it down we ended up in unfamiliar territory.  Eventually PinNwiggle got us back on track.  Had he not of been there we could have been turned around for some time.

Ok, Ok, enough about that.  Here is a video I threw together of our ride.  Despite all the complaining you just read about above.  We had a great time. We had my friend with us who doesn't have a lot of time on a snowmobile so we spent some time giving him some instruction too.  It was fun to watch him apply what we said to do.  If anybody wants to ride in Northern Utah or Southern Idaho area go to www.DiscussPowerSports.com, sign up and PM or Email me.  We can arrange a trip and show you around.  



Thanks for reading,
DPS

Cool New Sport

If you have a paraglider, I have a snowmobile.  Lets go to a field and give this a shot.  It would be so much fun to try.


Thanks for reading,
DPS