Greetings! It was a cold weekend on the trail in Minnesota, but despite the patch of frost bite on my cheek, the ride was excellent and fun. I took Friday off of work and headed to Tower, Minnesota, with a bunch of friends for a tour of the swampy, hilly, wooded terrain of the Minnesota Arrowhead Region.
Trails we rode include the Arrowhead Trail, Tim Corey Trail, Bear Skin Trail, Taconite Trail, Tomahawk Trail and Wolf Track Trail. They were in surprisingly good condition, so if you’re searching for a great area to go snowmobiling soon, I can all but guarantee you’ll enjoy riding in that remote and beautiful part of the state. The weather is forecast to stay well below the melting point for at least the next 10 days, so the snow cover should hold up.
-
I used two pieces of garage door-opening trim from The Home Depot as ski glides on the ramp for our Floe snowmobile trailer. After a busy stretch of weeks writing stories for the April 2015 issue of Snow Goer and finally sending it to the printer last week (look for it early next month with all of the 2016 model information!), I was able to spend some time at the SG shop on Thursday to work on a project. The ramp for one of our Floe snowmobile trailers had been put through the wringer with snowmobiles running up and down it hundreds (thousands?) of times over the years, so it was in serious need of a serious rehab. I stripped off the heavy plywood (what was left of it) last month and then had a shop weld extra aluminum support bars to strengthen it and provide something to which I could fasten new ski glides and traction strips. Though they’re not designed to provide track traction, I attached a few Grip Glides from Caliber up the middle of the ramp. The material I used for ski glides is unconventional, but I used the ramp this weekend while temperatures were minus 15 degrees F and it worked well and held up OK. More use this winter will provide more definitive impressions.
- That same trailer got more attention earlier this season when we had SnoCaps install one of its canvas covers on it. Co-workers Mark Rosacker and John Prusak each have used it multiple times this season, but this weekend was finally my first crack at it. We put three sleds inside the 16-foot trailer – two crossovers and one short-track – and that meant the sleds had to go in specific spots in order for everything to fit. The sleds stayed clean and I was impressed with the interior LED lights inside, and it pulled quite nicely.
-
SnoCaps makes lightweight trailer covers out of canvas and metal tubes. I’ll be traveling for the next week, but one of the jobs on the top of my “To Do” list after I return is to stud our 2015 Arctic Cat XF 6000 Limited demo. I have a unique angle for this routine job, so I look forward to doing the work and taking notes and photographs for an article that will be in an issue of Snow Goer next fall.
- Jeff Hawksworth from Skinz Protective Gear recently stopped at the Snow Goer office with a Float plate, rear bumper and cargo bag for us to test on our 2015 Polaris 600 Switchback Pro-S demo. Jeff is an interesting guy who always seems to have at least 10 irons in the fire. Our conversation, along with Mark and John, covered everything from mountain sleds to bicycles to trailers to snowmobile covers to how roads should be salted and sanded. Yes, we solved all of the world’s problems.
