Art Vandelay

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.

19 hours ago, Bontz said:

Oh, I don't disagree on their need to do this.  I just think it's like a slap in the face to the guys who weren't in love with the idea of settling for a 600 ... but they did so anyway .. and then less than 6 months later Cat is likely announcing the new big bore.  Yes, they need to make that announcement - I agree with that 100%.  But Cat needs to do something to ensure those customers who settled on the 600 don't feel like they got bent over, without lube. 

Everyone knew this was coming before they ordered their 24.

18 cat and 84 Enticer. About 7000-7500 miles. Usually do about 1500 a year over 2 4 day riding trips. Live in IN so trailer to best snow we can get to based on time we have. Occasionally go west too and either drag them out or rent. Also take kids to relative's house in Eagle River WI but usually ride sleds they have there since we take the minivan to get there with the kids.

25 minutes ago, Ziemann said:

I'd assume that the excess M's and Riots will sell quickly in the fall- even with a 600. The off trail U.P. crowd will slurp up those excess Riots.....

The pics of that ancient gauge on Cat's latest, most innovative sleds speaks volumes....

I'm still torn. I WANT to like the Catalyst, because I still have a misplaced loyalty to Cat after 30+ years of new Cat ownership..... BUT, after beating this dead horse now for the last 6 months, I still don't get it. Objectively speaking, I still don't see anything on paper that would motivate someone like me into going back to Cat. I'm interested, but frankly other than the Catalyst being bright and shiny, there's nothing there that's all that compelling. What is it that should be swaying me away from my Matryx VR-1?????

 

Yeah I wonder the same thing. Haven't ridden either of them yet. Polaris quality seems iffy these days but the cat is brand new and who knows what textron is doing, so who knows what you'll get. By quality that's just my opinion from reading their forums, before someone jumps on that.

The gauge doesn't make any difference than me other than I laugh that they call it "deluxe" now in the new chassis when the one on my 06 fusion was better... 

5 hours ago, Crnr2Crnr said:

@p51mstg rode them all... fwiw

I watched his videos before and maybe I should watch them again. I think he said the catalyst riot is a lot better on trail than the procross riot.

37 minutes ago, krom said:

 

I've ridden a few versions of it, and imho if you aren't actually going to ride off trail, its too long....
it trail rides better than the switchback, but just like every 146, is too long to for the trails, unless you ride like @ZR6000RR or how old people fuck

That's what I was wondering about. Probably ride my procross one more year and see about something else next year. Probably spend 75% of the time on the trail. Mine is a 137 and I like the 129 my bud has better.

5 hours ago, Not greg b said:

Funny you mention not being sold out. Munising motorsports posted today they have 2 catalyst riots for stock coming when ever they are built. They have the demo at their dealer ship now. 

Riot might be tempting in season. Would like to read some more rider reviews on it first though.

I don't know anything about what's going on with him in MN but didn't like the crap he pulled in the UP

8 hours ago, Cat45 said:

I'm pretty sure it was a 16 xf 6000. It was before the updated pistons

Ok got it. Mine is an 18. I can't remember what miles I have on it but I think around 7K.

On 5/14/2023 at 8:50 PM, Cat45 said:

Another failed ctech. I can find more pics on my phone of other ones too if you want. This Sled was ridden by his wife 

What year was it? Didn't they redo the pistons around 18 or so because of these issues?

Pence is a robot but if you listen to the whole answer instead of the gotcha moment it's the normal position for big government conservatives (i.e., GWB) who expect the fed govt to fix all our internal problems and police the world. 

I might try this too. For some reason it's hard to get it running right in the middle and it sounds like this will make it easy.

I assume by now everyone's mind is made up on this. 

Is it warming or just cyclical?  If so are humans at fault? If so is there anything we can do about it? If so will the chinese counteract anything we can do? Does it help to add more taxes? Does it help for the elites to fly in private jets to meet to discuss how to raise taxes to fix the problem? Why do the biggest proponents of it build enormous houses on the coasts?

8 hours ago, Not greg b said:

There is a time period they have to hold onto the company before they are done getting what they want out of it and agreements they have. Last one they did there thing with was Dixie chopper. They bought in 2014 and ended up shutting it down completely in 2018 because they didn’t care about it and it was loosing a crap ton of money. Alamo group bought it in 2019. Dixie is better now than it ever was with Alamo giving it direction. I have a feeling Cat will go down the same the path and be sold off sooner than later. If they were serious with cat several moves they made would not have been done. Big one would have been not putting the areo space engineer as the chief to fiddle fuck around for 8 months during the most important product launch in company history. 

I sure hope that's the outcome for cat - getting sold to someone who cares.