Hey Buddy can you spare a dime?

A lot has been made out of the integration of the Snoman trail passes with the insurance through MPI this year. There are the old arguments that discuss the fairness of integration and the new complaints regarding the increase in trail pass fees that accompanied integration.

Noses are firmly out of joint and people are mad as hell. They're just not going to take it anymore!! The way some people are reacting at local Manitoba snowmobiling forums you would think there could be riots in the streets.

So I decided to break down my expenses on a yearly basis to see exactly what the trail passes cost in comparison to the other expenses incurred for the hobby.

Estimated Costs Year/Km Driven

• $211.00 trail passes
• $569.00 insurance - including fire and theft
• $600.00 parts 
• $1800.00 fuel, oil, food etc.
• $4000.00 '07 Yamaha Apex RTX (total cost divided by years owned(2))
• $1100.00 '00 Ski-Doo MXZ 700 (total cost divided by years owned(3))
• $1200.00 gear
• $1650.00 trailer and insurance

• total of $11130.00

• 2000 km (estimated from previous years average kms ridden)

• total//km = $5.57/km

Of that total of $5.57/km the trail pass accounts for a whopping $0.10/km

So considering what you get when buying a pass; groomed trails, marked trails, signed trails, wood stocked warm up shacks, improved safety etc., I got to ask if their trail riding Kms are anywhere close to mine then....

Why the hell are these people complaining?!?

Late Start

As you can see I haven't blogged since October. Back then I was looking forward to a long, snowy season. Well it's now December 2nd here in 'snowy' Winnipeg and there is still no snow.

I've been spending time prepping my Apex but I'm ready to ride. Due to my love of cheeseburgers I found the stock suspension on my '07 RTX a little soft to say the least. So, revalved rear shock and some beefier springs have been added as well as a 13 mm sway bar to flatten it out a bit in the corners.

Now I just need snow!


Safe Riding!

Winter is in the Air!

Hi All,

First post on the new blog. It's early October and the temperature outside is dropping and all thoughts are on the new sled season.

I'll be posting from the seats of my '07 Yamaha Apex RTX and '00 Ski-Doo MXZ 700. As the name of my blog implies I'm just an average trail rider with a passion for the sport. I have done some tweeks to get the most of my sleds and will be doing more and I'll let you know the skinny on all of them as well as some comments on a variety of other sled related topics.

Here's to a long, snowy winter!

Let it Snow!