Art Vandelay

Find the 3 old guys trip from this past season if you want to ride from WI and cross through MI. I haven't ridden the side accessible from MN.

If starting in Ontario and driving over from MI, Searchmont is where we start.

I missed out on the fire sale. Oh well. Whatever I saved on what I needed I probably would have spent on stuff I didn't need.

On 3/29/2025 at 11:30 PM, mnstang said:

Agreed. Hopefully there's someone left to ship out my order!

There was a bunch I didn't get. I saw a Hayes brake rotor for $35.

Is that a worth doing upgrade? It's cheap enough. I have quite a few parts in my cart right now. Need to be realistic if I'd make use of them.

I had the rachet straps in my cart, and the discount went away before I got around to buying them. Wonder if they're dropping the discounts when the inventory levels get down to what they want

Had no idea they were selling those at that price.

4 hours ago, p51mstg said:

Are the screws different than the previous Team secondary?  I have both, but it never actually occurred to me that they could be different. 

I'm in the Rochester area about every other month now and it'd be fun to stop in Cannon Falls to see the BDX guys.  Or, maybe I need to put together an order...  better go check out their web site...

 

I asked one of the clutch companies about that. I could be wrong but I thought they said one is metric thread and the other is standard thread.

17 hours ago, Not greg b said:

Changing my spring and helix made a big difference.  The primary is actually pretty close from the factory. What the catalyst comes with is trash. If the weather report holds true I should be able to ride in a week. I have some adjustable weights now to load it down. All stock vs a secondary change 

What did you change the helix to? Are they 48 straight on the 600 catalysts?

3 hours ago, Not greg b said:

He was out testing it on the road in front of his shop today. 

I talked to him earlier this week. Production is a bit behind. I don't want to try to speak for them but it sounds like it's in the secondary where they found the most improvements.

2 hours ago, racinfarmer said:

Speculation is another round of layoffs and/or furloughs tomorrow or Friday.

Most of the time companies do the cuts all at once, so hopefully this isn't the case.

I wish they'd get it over with and sell to Argo.

Why would they cut the engineers if it's about to be sold?

I talked to Thunder products a couple weeks ago about my procross 600 that has an adapt. They have something in production for the catalyst (that would also help my sled). They said it was a month out then so I'd guess it will be available in a couple weeks from now. They described what they are doing but I'd call and get specifics from them.

I've seen this discussed elsewhere and Thunder Products apparently is a good source as they've had more time on them.

As a total outsider to these circle jerks, this faggot AK440 ruins this site. Every time you log in his stupid ass posts are there. Kind of like the Jim guy used to be.

It would make sense that insurance costs have increased due to replacement costs increasing.

1 hour ago, teamgreen02 said:

Yes, I do.  Currently running the Ski Doo rail mount scratchers but looking to swap them to the new style before the season.  We are out early on Friday and Saturday morning so the trails are really set up, especially after they groom.  Spring riding you may be parked until noon if it gets above freezing during the day and freezes hard overnight.  Just not worth the risk.  

I like that they put the harder tip on those. But the ones I broke, broke near the coil. Not sure what broke them - maybe it got caught on something - but it was the kind of day where it was warmed/rained for a day or two and then got really cold, so zero powder in the snow. Which is exactly what I bought them for.

I haven't had a situation where I needed both down so I typically just run one.

I use the brp style rail ones. I think they work well, although I've broken one. I think I'm going to try the tunnel ones next. You can find someone online who has had issues with any of them but I'm done riding without them for sure. Was caught a couple times in conditions that needed them.

From the POV of someone that knows doos are good machines but will never get 'that ski doo feeling" I think the lynx look a lot better than doos.

Maybe he meant not much time left for him.

2 hours ago, Ziemann said:

OMG- that is an understatement. She didn't exactly instill much confidence that anyone knew what they were doing in TRF. 

This year was much much better. 

Agree they've come a long way in the past couple years. Snowtech said the textron let TRF have some marketing people back locally. It's got to make a difference compared to the temp lady from georgia.

2 hours ago, Bontz said:

I gotta say, it boggles my mind how much Jim wants to argue and talk like he knows what's going on & fails to recognize the people who are telling him he's wrong.  Between a certified Cat Master Technician (is that what it's still referred to @krom?) and several guys who are clearly in the know when it comes to racing ... and riding .  Threads like this are comedy gold!!

This is an odd site. Lots of knowledge but you need to sift through the village idiot and everyone who can't ignore him to learn anything.

3 hours ago, AK440 said:

I should add, the dipshits in the mainstream sled media won’t even hint if they saw any issues on their preproduction test rides. It won’t be until next season they’ll mention any short comings, well after the internet savvy riders long learned or experienced the problems with the system. Then the sled media will say there were some “teething issues” but Textron has addressed the “small number of failures” and has an updated belt to cure the issue for the guys who “run their sleds harder than average”. 
 

The customer will again be doing the R&D for sled OEM’s who keep charging higher and higher prices every season.

Snowtech might be different. They had a riot a couple years ago with all kinds of issues, and they've pointed out the quality issues on recent poo's. 

On 9/19/2023 at 8:15 PM, Premium said:

At 8:15, Andy is literally talking freely about having to "choke" out a critical, remote location data acquisition session from the bean counters at Textron Specialized Vehicles lol. Had they not gotten that session the whole project would've been pushed back another year. He then talks about the Cat engineers refusing to stop working during COVID. It's clear here the passion is still there in TRF, despite the Textron muzzle.

That's a good interview. Good to see that Cat focused on making a solid mountain chassis. They were kind of the hill prior to the procross and for then for whatever reason decided to make a trail chassis and sort of modify it to be a 2nd rate mountain sled and totally gave up that market share. One of several reasons they're where they are now.

Side note - can you block posters on here? There's a lot of knowledge getting passed around on these threads but every discussion gets sidetracked by one guy spouting BS and then 5 people that take the bait every time.

10 hours ago, mnstang said:

Screw that, per year?  Per sled?  So do you all only have one sled, no vintage/fun sleds?  I keep five registered that'd be $2500 per year lol WTF!!!!!  Rich man's sport up there no grassroots apparently. 

Well it is in loonies.

1 hour ago, ZR6000RR said:

You poor fucking Canadians. You really need to think before you vote.

Other than the insurance it's nothing to do with that. Not saying canada isn't socialist especially quebec but the number of miles (km?) per rider is incredible up there. You just don't have the traffic and someone has to pay for all those trails.

Now gas prices on the other hand - that's purely due to who they keep voting for.

I think staying in office keeps them from being investigated. Goes for both sides. Plus the more seniority the more say you have over pork projects.

1 hour ago, Not greg b said:

As you can tell by his list of accomplishments, giving a shit about arctic cat wasn’t even on his radar lol. 

That one new model intro he participated in was embarrassing. Talking about how a grown man like him couldn't handle an adult sled but he liked the blast.

Having said that clowns in these positions typically have nothing to do with product development. I'm sure he made the decision that he would help by being in the presentation.