2010 Polaris IQ Turbo Dragon Review
Posted by Jerry Bassett on August 31, 2009 under Uncategorized | 
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In The Air Tonight
Posted by Chris on August 27, 2009 under Information, Personal Interest, Skidoo, sleds, snowmobiles, weather | Comments are off for this article
Every year around this time I get this feeling. It happened this morning. I rolled out of bed, slowly as usual, sensing my aging lower back, knees and ankles as muscles and joints remind me of last evenings mountain bike race. The house was unusually cool, fresh breeze wafting through the open windows, no humidity… summer is over before it even began.
I had noticed some color change in the trees up north last weekend but hey it was still a muggy 28, hot August weekend. Nope it happened this morning. Fall fever. It is officially the snowmobile pre-season according to me, which means the same for Yamaha Canada.
I just checked the Sledtalk blog stats and traffic is up 60% over the past two weeks. 
That tells me something. In fact I figure because you are reading this now, you also have the gut desire to pull the sled out of storage or at least consider what the options are for new gear, upgrades and what, if any, sled shows are happening in the hood. And just as importantly, wondering what winter will have in store based on the weather trends thus far this year.
It’s no secret that the motorsports industry has been in the dumper this summer. A very general snapshot sees the marine, ATV and motorcycle business down in Canada around 25%. Some product groups more, some less. Interestingly enough, the used market appears to be up and the parts and service business has been practically recession proof.
I have another gut feeling and it is directly connected to the change of seasons and the affect upon me the snowmobiler (not me the Yamaha employee). The snowmobile world has its own form of Kryptonite, fending off the doom and gloom of global economic strife. We have more passion, more desire and more attraction to our winter wanderlust than any of our other wheeled or propped pastimes.
I predict sled sales will not reflect the the 25 point downturn of the other product lines and I highly doubt that any significant number of riders will hang up their helmets this year because of the economy. So be patient, if it hasn’t hit you already it most surely well over the next few weeks. It’s time to start thinking snow. cheers cr
New Ideas in Riding Gear
Posted by Jerry Bassett on August 26, 2009 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article
2010 Arctic Cat F8 LXR Review
Posted by Jerry Bassett on August 24, 2009 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article
Hall of Fame Moves & Going Green For Sales
Posted by Jerry Bassett on August 19, 2009 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article
2010 Yamaha Venture GT Review
Posted by Jerry Bassett on August 17, 2009 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article
Snake Eyes Part 4: The Finale
Posted by Chris on August 13, 2009 under 2-stroke, Cat, Product Planning, SRX, Skidoo, Yamaha, Yamaha Insights, snowmobile, supertrax, suspension, testing | Comments are off for this article
Thinking it might be time to wrap the ‘Snake Eyes’ saga. I jumped in my tin-boat after our regular Sunday rainstorm to bail it out . Third scoop of the bucket and a young water snake slithered out from under the fuel tank platform aggressively swimming directly at my writing hand, had to use a paddle to evict her… perhaps she was delivering a message .
And so it was, the SX Viper became a highly refined variation of the SXr. The new engine proved to be
extremely efficient and bullet proof. I’m not so sure the FAI (ram-air) feature was near the benefit we had hoped, although Saito still swears it makes a difference of three to four horsepower at top speed. I remember how much attention was spent on the air management and layout, one example of the level of detail that goes into a Yamaha can be seen in this sound hologram analysis: 0MC0717.
The engine was sneaky fast, not as hard hitting as the big twin 800’s but far smoother and more linear in it’s delivery. Although the horsepower numbers didn’t peak that high on the dyno, the torque was very ‘usable’ and ‘tractable’, it ‘got ‘er done.’ More importanly (at least to Yamaha), very few ever ended up on the wrong end of the tow rope and we also set the bar for low fuel and oil consumption. I found this report on the competition which I wrote after ridng all the new stuff at the Snowshoot in Yellowstone, I think it was: Snow Shoot 02
The Viper’s marketing had to be tweaked somewhat due to all the changes in the original plan. Several ‘creative briefs’ occurred. I found this marketing strategy document from the ad agency working on the Viper account. It is based on their market understanding after meeting and discussing with our people. Note the names have been changed to protect the innocent 
: 2002SXViperBlueStrategy . I can’t duck the bullet when it comes to marketing hype, I also found this letter I wrote, which was part of a direct mail campaign to Canadian owners of SXr’s and SRX following the release of the new Viper. Hey I only had to swallow hard once! Snake Bit
The first season we had a lot of feedback regarding the ride comfort of the SX Viper. Most were pointed at the shocks and skid frame set-up while some questioned the seat firmness. This eventually led to some countermeasure specs and I remember taking off for a few days with my riding partner Mike Collins and Steve Brand from TekRiderto do some real world testing and evaluations. Steve volunteered to do the trucking and we headed north after picking up the Supertrax Viper press sled which Mark and Kent had been struggling to dial in. I still remember the Supertrax article recommending everyone remove all pre-load from all four shocks as the ‘hot set-up’ for trail riding, it was that sled I wanted to try. We also had a base line stocker and one with the latest countermeasure spec from factory. Steve wanted to have us test some of his latest TekVest products and he had acquired a set of the then ‘new’ Precision skis from Skidoo. Here’s my report from the archives. It dosen’t include the part where after breaking trail for many miles we all ran out of fuel. If it had not been for an abandoned Cat with a very tight engine and full tank of gas we’d of been in some serious doo-doo. Steve did the honors of sucking on the siphon hose and remarked how much better the premium fuel in the kitty tasted compared to the regular gype he had just sucked from Mikes sled to stay in the game. The way I saw it is; we made the Cat much lighter for the tow out, no worries, you are welcome…
Made me smile to review after this many years. I’ll let you read between the lines. After the report was written several of the items I referred to were addressed in different ways, including at least one lawsuit for Skidoo (we have been and still are, struggling to find a good ski / skag design that is not patent protected): reportSXV02
The second year Viper’s had most of the wrinkles removed with improved suspension settings. We also came up with a controversial shock update kit for owners who found their 02’s too stiff. The rear heat exchanger was also addressed (originally left off to save weight and cost based on testing that indicated we could live without one). And then there was the ViperS complete with adjustable Ohlins front shocks and the Ripsaw track / deep keel ski cloned from the RX-1… what a difference, what a great sled! (not unlike the Exciter SX scenario), get it right and discontinue… d’oh!
So there you have it. What started out as a clean sheet of paper became a nicely evolved snowmobile based on many existing parts and refinements. It is my perception of this which led to my post entitled: ‘The Last 2-Smoke’ which talked about the SRX being the final new 2-stroke developed by Yamaha before going full-on 4-stroke. It’s debatable whether the Viper is truly the last 2-stroke that Yamaha developed, just depends how you look at it. Matter of fact I understand that the Bravo is getting a clutch update next year, maybe that should qualify
I ho
pe you enjoyed this little series. If Saito comes up with any more de
tails or images I’ll do an update down the road. Until then I must get back to finishing up my cottage and fending off snakes.
cheers cr
Do-It-Yourself Memorial Day
Posted by Matt Allred on August 12, 2009 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article
Paul Bauerly joins Sportech Racing
Posted by SnowGoer on August 11, 2009 under Arctic Cat, ISOC, Racing News, Snocross, snowmobile | Comments are off for this article
Yamaha Sled Talk 2009-08-11 12:06:45
Posted by Chris on under Yamaha Insights | Comments are off for this article
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