The annual survey that goes out to Snow Goer readers consistently shows that skis are popular bolt-on accessories for snowmobiles. With C&A Pro perhaps being the most well known brand of aftermarket ski on the market, and since it had been more than five years since we tested a set of boards from the company, we wanted to reacquaint ourselves with its products.
We put a set of RZ, or “Razor,” skis on a familiar platform – our 2015 Ski-Doo MX Z TNT 600 H.O. E-TEC demo – at the start of the season and ran them for more than 1,000 miles. C&A Pro calls the RZ the company’s premier ski for trail riders.
RZ skis are 6 inches wide, 44 inches long and the center keel is three-quarters of an inch tall. There are two ‘V’ shaped keels along the inner and outer edge of each ski that are about 23 inches long and three-eighths of in inch deep. These extra keels were designed to reduce darting from what could otherwise be an overly aggressive sole for trail riding.
With a conventional loop that bolts to the front of the saddle and the tip of the ski, assembling the kit was easy and self-explanatory. We last tested a set of C&A Pro skis on one of our 2009 Polaris demos and had difficulty mounting them to the spindles because the rubber bushing between the saddle and spindle was too thick, which made it difficult to vertically align the bolt holes for the spindle and the ski. That was a non-issue for this set of RZ skis.
All winter through a variety of snow conditions, the RZ skis delivered very good, precise handling with comfortable steering effort that was a notch or two heavier than a set of stock Ski-Doo with 4-inch carbides. They tracked straight on hard, well set-up trails in January, and handling stayed predictable on wet, sloppy snow late in the season.
Coupled with the 84 studs that were screwed in the track of our MX Z, the machine had a nice, sure-footed traction package that had enough loose-ness to be playful, yet there was more grip than stock so drivers could ride securely and confidently on slippery surfaces.
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