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Mountain Riders, very small club
- Thread starter nuggetau
- Start date
I will admit to having a bias towards flatlanders, not the people so much, it's more that they simply represent trail riding for me. I hate trail riding, boring as hell as far as I am concerned. If I have to ride more than 20 miles round trip to get off trail I am bitching in my helmet. If all I could do is ride trail I wouldn't own a sled at all, no that isn't an insult, it's just how I feel about trail riding.
As for the flatlanders coming west to ride, they have a right to come, on the other hand I wish they wouldn't. It's the same old story everywhere, people are territorial, when you live somewhere you consider it "yours", and when someone outside wants to come in and clog up your riding area you aren't going to be very happy to see them. I suspect the flatlanders would feel the same if all the people from the west wanted to come east and ride your trail systems. You would feel over run, and would probably wish we would stay home.
Given the numbers, you are right, absent the trail riders we wouldn't have much of a snowmobile industry. Maybe that's the other part of the friction between flatlander/mountain. The industry spends very little time or money developing a product that is specific for the mountains, instead we get a thinly veiled flatlander sled year after year after year masquerading as a mountain sled. As Better Boards and nearly all of the mountain aftermarket products proves, the aftermarket is Born of the fact that the flatlander sled design is poorly adapted to the mountain riding we do. That's why we need the aftermarket companies to redesign the sleds year after year, because the sled manufacturers continue to put out sleds that have running boards that load up, flatlander clutching that doesn't work in the mountains, and the list goes on and on. So, part of it is that I'm pissed that the manufacturers build for you, not for us the mountain riders. We get stuck with your hand me downs year after year. I'm not happy about that, I want the manufacturers to give us a finished product, no more crappy clutching, no more loading running boards, no more trail ski's, no more stiff snowflaps, etc....
Wow, where did all this hate come from? I hear flat land guys getting really defensive. We wouldn't have sleds if not for you guys? Geeez...I'm sure we would come up with something.
We are starting to see some sleds made just for the mountain guys. The new Polaris is part Rush, but not much. It used to be that mountain sleds were flat land sleds with a long track. a lot has changed in 15 years (Ski Doo Summit, AC Powder Special, etc).
Don't get pissy because we don't want to show you our favorite spots. Fisherman and hunters are the same way with their spots. And for those people that say it takes a lot of infrastructure to groom and manage trails...try that in Colorodo where we don't have near as many sleds (to get registration money from) and the f'n Boulder liberals are constantly trying to take what we have. We have plent of battles on our hands as well.
We are starting to see some sleds made just for the mountain guys. The new Polaris is part Rush, but not much. It used to be that mountain sleds were flat land sleds with a long track. a lot has changed in 15 years (Ski Doo Summit, AC Powder Special, etc).
Don't get pissy because we don't want to show you our favorite spots. Fisherman and hunters are the same way with their spots. And for those people that say it takes a lot of infrastructure to groom and manage trails...try that in Colorodo where we don't have near as many sleds (to get registration money from) and the f'n Boulder liberals are constantly trying to take what we have. We have plent of battles on our hands as well.
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No hate from me, just gets old reading tons of threads where "flatlanders" are looked at as posers or somewhat less of sledders. And yes I am sure that you guys would find something to ride as far as mountain sleds, I was just pointing out that the 4 sled manufactures are fueled by trail riders, i.e. midwestern snowmobilers and if those people were not buying the amount of sleds that they are, those 4 companies would be out of the snowmobile business. Maybe I picked the wrong thread to vent but my points are valid. Don't you think if the demand was so high for a 100% mountain machine there would have been one by now? if not by the 4 sled builders then by some independent company? Its just a game of numbers and the majority of market still lies in the midwest, but us wanna be mountain guys are now fueling your mountain sled segment by showing more interest in crossover and boondocking sleds. That will bring more attention to the needs of mountain riders for sure. Sorry for the rant!
dont hate on me becuase i cant transplant my whole family and business to a mountainous region. i have been riding in the mountains pretty much my whole life and the sleds dont get ridden in the "flatlands" except for in an instance like last year when i installed my turbo before a trip. the people who are fortunate enough to live in those areas should be happy to see our money coming in every winter. listening to people whine about flatlanders riding their mountains is no different then the greenies whining about snomobiles riding in the mountains. its attitude like that that is leading to closure of more and more riding areas that we all miss out on
"should be happy to see our money coming in every winter", the only people who are happy to see tourists(planet wide) are the people making money from it! If no one was making a profit from tourists we would ALL want everyone to stay home. 
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Only NuggetAU is bashing flatlanders. I'm stoked to see any snowmobiler because I think we are part of a group that some would like to see go away. In Colorado, people move here and put up their "fence". A term that means they want to be here but stop others from coming in. I'm 100% native and have been for 4 generations now. I understand that our economy feeds off of out of state people coming in. We get it from skiers, snowmobilers, hunters (hello Texas) and general vacationing. We just want to keep the hills to ourselves. It's epic to ride when just me and a couple buddies are blasting the powder on huge mountains and nobody is around. That's why people don't want others around. Nobody hates (except maybe NuggetAU) your converyor belt for a track flat land sled!
ok i have to admit i really dont like running into the ones with the so called conveyor belt sleds that are always stuck when you come around a corner and want help getting un-stuck haha
I know...I'm just kidding. I got nothing better to do until it snows!
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