Allow me to introduce myself. I'm a recently retired factory manager from Minnesota. We moved to Colorado a year ago and enjoy it as much as we did Minnesota. Nice folks here who enjoy the outdoors just like I do. I hope to acquire an ATV for winter snow plowing and summer trail riding. Our two sons live in the Denver area. We enjoy our two vintage Airstreams and traveling in them about 30 nights a year. They do take a lot of maintenance and repairs.

I've enjoyed "motorsports" my entire life from flying RC model planes, go karts, motorcycles, compact tractors and especially sports cars. Let's just say I've wasted a lot of money through the years. My wife suggests I take up gardening, much cheaper.

I hope the ATV Connection can help me with my ATV experience. There is a lot to learn and I hope I can solve problems with my new to me ATV with your help and experience.

David

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

Welcome!

 

Welcome.

 

dbj216, Welcome from another newbie to the forum. Are you planning to buy new or used? And while trail riding are you planning to ride singly or 2 up? There aren't a huge amount of options, I don't think, if you plan on riding 2up. CanAm, Polaris, Arctic Cat, and maybe a few off brand machines. As far as size, I think a 400-500cc would be plenty for what you would be using it for. I know that I have a couple of Honda Rancher 420's and I know we aren't supposed to, but we ride two up on them, and they seem to handle whatever we put in front of them. Of course we aren't wild riders either, being past the 50 yr mark healing takes much longer than it used to. In any event they seem to have plenty of oomf for our type of trail riding we do. As far as plowing goes, we have a 52" plow on ours which seems to work fine and my brother has a 60" on his 420 and sure moves a lot of snow with his set up.

As a side note have done a bit of RC flying myself over the years, unfortunately hardly any the last 3 or 4 years. Busy with life and since taking up with the ATV's and Tandem cycling that has been put on the back burner for now. I sure am amazed how far electrics have come, lots of power and a lot longer battery life with the new types of batteries. Hope you find what you are looking for.

What part of Colorado are you in? I have a brother that lives in the Greely/Windsor area, he loves it there. Far enough out of the city and still close to the mountains, plus he said the temps are a little more mild than Southwest Montana. Post some pics if you find something would love to see what you end up with. FF

 

Greetings freedomflyer. We moved to the Conifer area, south west of Denver, in the "foothills". We're at 8300 feet. We moved from the Minneapolis area. We've been here over a year and like it. Like Montana, Colorado has lots of ATV adventure trails. Utah may have more.

My friends tell me that the altitude robs the machine of considerable power. It certainly does rob power on my 4 cylinder, 2 liter car. I haven't decided, but they both ride Arctic Cat 700s, and both are around 70 years young. Me too. No speed riding with our bunch. They like their Arctic Cats and they are both 2 up machines. Although one says he would consider a 50" wide side by side if he ever gets another machine.

I want a 2 up machine for casual riding with the wife, son, or friends. But mainly I am attracted to the extra some 4" of wheelbase. I have read that this has a significant effect on stability. A flip over wheelie on an ATV is not uncommon, especially as we travel up steep slopes. An ATV looks like an inherently unstable design, too short, too narrow and a high CG for the power they have. Reminds me of the "GEE BEE" racing aircraft of the 30s. No fuselage length. Maybe this is why side by sides are so popular. Easier to handle due to their size.

I call an ATV quad a "mountain tractor". I intend to plow voluminous Colorado snow with it as it would be faster than my snowblower. I can haul dead trees and slash out of my woods, haul firewood, and haul landscaping dirt now and then. Maybe I can grade my gravel driveway. Doing serious work with the machine is what prompts my questions about reliability. I think ATVs are built as "toys" for occasional use. Maybe they are built to a price point, and engineers figure out ways to meet that cost.

Actually Honda is the ATV a lot of people prefer for farm and ranch work. The Honda is a smaller machine and hasn't kept up with the performance of other brands as far as I can tell. The new Honda Rincon is getting there. But I read they are very reliable. They don't make a 2 up as far as I know. They do make a side by side.

I want a late model or new ATV thinking I will have more influence on the maintenance and abuse of the machine. I expect a 1000 mile machine might have expensive problems. A used ATV is a lower cost crapshoot in my opinion that may cost more in the long run. With my luck, I 'd find one someone pulled stumps out of the ground with.

My last foray into RC flying was electric helicopters. Modern electronics, especially the direction finding gyro, make this hobby feasible. Collective pitch helicopter flying has been a real challenge for me. Crash and crash again. ATVs look easier to operate.

David

 

dbj216, you are substantially higher than we are that's for sure so am sure you get way more snow than we do. Yes I would agree, my Honda's are smaller but for what we use them for they work great, even riding double. I must be an extremely conservative rider because we have never had any worries about going over backwards and if there is an area that makes my wife uncomfortable, we stop and she just gets off and walks past it, Hope you find what you're looking for. I think both of my machines have been extremely reliable for being used and both having an educated guess of 2500 to 3000 miles on them, but that's a Honda for you.

My last RC experience was one of the Parkzone Radian's, Great little electric sail plane, the only reason I quit flying it is, the guy I was working with ran over my RC bag that had my charger in it and destroyed the charger and I have never gone and replaced it. Been busy with life, I guess and with my ATV's. But it sure was fun I wired it with LED lights red on the "port" side and green on the "Starboard" side, white flasher on the top of the fin, blue on the bottom tail of the fuse, then Landing lights in the leading edge. Was a blast to take up in pitch black, those little LED's really show up well. My RC collection consists of about 10 glow fuel models of all kinds from a Senior Telemaster for dinking around and carrying up sailplanes and launching them, to a Hangar 9 "Twist" then I have about 15 various sailplanes. Thermal ships to slope ships, I really enjoy the silent flight and the challenge of slope flying, always thought it made a better pilot out of you not having the convenience of being able to throttle up and try again. Makes a guy pretty light on the elevator.

 

Welcome!

 

dbj216,
here's a shot of some of my sail planes as you can see they range from floaters to some higher wind slope ships, my Radian is not in with this group as well as a few others that I have. Sorry to the rest of the guys on the thread I got a bit carried away.

 

You are a very accomplished modeler. Very nice looking "flock" of sail planes. Sailing does require more strategy than powered flight, that's for sure.

I saw a full size glider landing at the Bolder, CO airport on Saturday. There is no "go around" with a sail plane.

It's been years since I've flown a powered RC model. And quite a while since I've flown the heli. Like you said, busy with life. Or maybe busy with retirement.

I plan to use this forum as I develop an ATV interest.

David