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That's fair

I have a really hard time with ebikes. To me it defeats the purpose...exercise feels good and is good for you. If I want something motorized I'll grab my motorcycle.

My troy is a 140 rear and 150 mm up front. Some versions come with an available 160mm fork. That would be way overkill for what I typically ride. Only occasionally do I miss 27.5 wheels...the 29 is just so much faster overall in my experience, even if it doesn't feel like it. Then when riding the extremely rocky terrain of north shore upper peninsula the monster truck tires come in quite handy too. All depends what/where/how you ride though.

Been an avid mountain biker since high school (now 35). We are fortunate to have around 50 miles of singletrack within a 15 min drive of my house and many more within 45 minutes. I'm with many of you in that it has claimed a collar bone, in addition to a nose, two fingers, and two ribs. Of all the motorsports I do, somehow mountain biking has been the most dangerous for me. I do a race exhibition here and there, but I mainly ride for fun. I have a road bike as well but that mainly gets used for foundational zone2 endurance training both during and off-season on a bike trainer. Primary ride is a Devinci Troy Carbon 29.

I'm thinking the Catalyst would've won if tunnel flares were installed

What sled did they allocate the SOTY honors to then?

I'm surprised our resident forum fact fabricator doesn't have constant issues with cooling. When my young nephew rides the R-XC at a constant 15 mph it definitely gets toasty. I doubt those deflectors even do any deflecting at those speeds, let alone cooling.

Yep that's pretty much my experience. Stay as "brappy" as possible Keep the track and the water pump spinning.

Do you run studs? I have a feeling that's a big reason I never seem to have cooling issues except in extreme circumstances (like plowed seasonal roads).

It's wild to me those are over $100. I'll take an occasional snowball to the shoulder

Do you have a link to this episode? The last "Real world sled of the year" snow trax episode I can find was 2023. I do know Snowgoer gave the Catalyst SOTY honors, fwiw.

I'm dying

That's not really true in my experience. While the "auto-tensioning" clutches that Cat uses may likely mask improper belt length better than other setups, a belt that is too long will absolutely crush top speed because the primary could be full shift, but the secondary is not (and cannot). Attempting to get the secondary to fully shift in that scenario would just create belt slip, heat, and further loss of top speed.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4eEAIjP_7B/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link 8 fiddy 8 sounding a lot crispier

Did they break at the weld or is the metal too thin?

Kinda like people begging for a twin rail mountain sled option and Cat just straight up refusing to do it. It boggles the mind.

Metallic panther purple goes quite well with arctic apple green, if I do say so myself

A single green fuel toilet powering a twin free-air 2026 Catalyst Cat will have jimbo bricked right up.

I know your underwear are all different shades of green, but many just want one green on their sleds and that's OK

In my mind this is a throwback to the late 80s color schemes that defined that decade, especially the 1988 Wildcat 650 (which my old man had when I was a kid). I didn't really care for it at first either, despite my personal history. But, it has grown on me and I plan to do a custom wrap incorporating the different shades of green when I take delivery.

Definitely makes me feel more confident, especially coming from AJ.

For sure. Clutching could be a huge factor here. That said, with one on order, I'm officially worried I'm not going to be happy with the sled. Cat has to get this right.

It did seem that way. That was a painful podcast to watch/listen to. It's hard to know what to think...they start the episode plugging Polaris hard, rag on the 858 "bottom end", their descriptions were all over the map with meandering and unspecific responses, and they put out a 2 part series with a quantity of information that easily could've fit into a 15 min episode.

Definitely far from glowing reviews. I'm sure Cat has some fuel calibration and clutching to get sorted out. It's kind of funny that pages and pages of this thread have been dedicated to sorting out the 600 catalyst clutching, but the snowest crew raves about how that sled feels . As a tree riding crew they prob don't care one bit about a wall at 80 mph, as long as it feels snappy. Back when I was doing some drag racing with my F7, you could throw a ton of weight at that primary to get faster ETs. You definitely felt it load that motor though. The racing setups I used were far from my ideal trail setups. Of course, we can't rule out that Textron's Arctic Cat gave us a turd (I shudder as I think back to the 07-09 suzuki 800 in the twin spar).