We went on a ride Sunday and a new Can-AM 1000 side by side was the hold up of the day. It was just too wide, heavy and clumsy for the rough narrow twisty trails. Even my 350 Grizzly and a 350 Big Bear out paced it easily. LOL
The guy with the SXS was even riding solo. These things must be for wide open spaces only.

 

Ran into a couple guys out on the Western Maine trails with a Commander. They chatted with me for a bit and took off up the mountain. I checked my blood sugar, gave myself insulin, had lunch, used a nearby tree..., packed everything away and headed up the mountain. Caught them within 20 minutes. You just don't have the room to maneuver a big machine when it gets tight. Drove a Commander 800 up in Northern Maine where there are more roads. It was fun to powerslide a big machine like that with just a stab of the throttle. Tight trails, no thanks.

 

Trouble is once the road is wide enough for these thing to fly down you could also fly down them in a Pickup truck or Suv.

 

Some of these machines are 64" wide like the Wildcat 1000. It basically IS the size of a small car. They would still be more fun to ride than a truck down some backroad but on tight trails, they just aren't manuverable. The house-sized turning radius means having to back up a lot on tight trails. If the trail is too narrow, you're scraping and banging off trees or having to go around and find an alternate route. The 50" machines like the rzr models and Wildcat Trail would be a better choice. And there are some trails that something like a Grizzly would just barely scrape through. The more I look at the Polaris Ace, the more I kind of see the appeal of it. Now that it is available with the 900 engine(albeit detuned a bit over the rzr but still 65 hp) it looks like it would be a lot of fun. Though it will probably cost as much a Sportsman 1000, that will be the biggest drawback.

 

The trails where we were a couple weeks ago were a mix of roads used by everybody, dirt roads, old logging roads, trails, and gnarly trails. The two mountains the trails went over had some tight, rocky, twisty, trails with some mud and water thrown in for fun. I fortunately passed them on the way up the old logging roads before we got to the top of the first mountain. Had a lot of fun jumping water bars on the way up the hill...

 

Yea I couldn't imagine taking a full size SxS down trails that were designed for ATVs and dirt bikes. My pioneer 500 just squeezes thru some of the tighter twisty areas of 50in trails and it's got a fairly tight turning radius.

However, I don't think it's fair to compare a 64in SxS that weighs 1500lbs to a 75in jeep or truck that can weigh anywhere between 4-6k pounds for obvious reasons. Your friend clearly bought the wrong machine for his intended use but that doesnt mean that everyone else with one did

 

All about the proper tool for the job. A lot of places I ride my sport quads we leave the utes in the dust. They just cant keep up. Places I take the side by side would suck on a sport quad. Report back after the two of you go on a dune trip, lol.

 

This one was a Commander 1000 ,it was loaded even had the Power steering even on the narrow twisty but smooth one lane gravel camping roads that RVs use it was having a hard time ,it just had no room for mistakes with a ditch on each side.

We just shot up ahead of him and waited ,rinse and repeat the entire ride. I tried it out and could not wait to trade back, I felt like I was sitting on the ground and in a car.

 

A lot of people buy these because they like the feel of sitting in a machine rather than sitting on it. But yes, you lose the feel factor when riding. You don't have the ability to use your body to make the machine lean the way you want it to because utvs are so big and heavy compared to atvs. You just pick your line and the machine will do what it wants and you're just along for the ride. And forget muscling one out if you get stuck, a winch should be standard equipment on any utv. Its hard enough to wrestle a Grizzly through a tough spot, utility utvs are more than double the weight.