My father and I went Halfs on a very low mile 1999 Polaris Sportsman 500. He keeps it up in Montana and I live a couple of states away. After using it and our wind-shielded Kawasaki Prairie 360 for hunting season (not too cold out) I thought is was negligible for functionality. I also like the 500 better without the windshield because it has two gun racks on the forward of the steering column above the front wheels. Yes it blocks the wind and if you weren't properly layered and it was cold it would make a difference, and maybe more so if you didnt have eye protection with cold weather.

Fast forward to this week and my father bought a windshield, snow plow and chains for the Sportsman 500. Seems legit that in very cold weather and plowing the windshield would be ideal, but i'm not so keen for having it on during hunting seasons with milder temps and easier access to my rifle.

What are opinions on windshields? Like them, hate them, think they take away cool points? Are they easy to take off and put back on (less than 20 mins for a swap out ect)?

 

A windshield would block a lot of cold air when you're riding but you don't go that fast when you're plowing. There's not much wind and I've never had snow fly up in my face either so it doesn't seem like it would do much good. The Lock & Ride windshield goes off and on in seconds. I don't know about the others.

 

I Had a windshield/fairing combo on my other 350 Grizzly, I likes tucking behind it to get through thick brush and whip twigs ,also if it rains and your on a faster gravel road it actually keeps you dry as long as you do not slow down to much.

But yes I found it limited the front rack space when I tried it on a ATV camping fishing trip.
Eventually your looking over them not through them since they scratch up fairly easily on narrow bush trails.

 

personally i hate them. besides giving up space, they get damaged by trees and such. As you stated as long as your properly layered you are nice and warm. I was out in -10 this weekend and was nice and warm. Only thing that got cold was my fingertips but as long as i remembered to wiggle my fingers every once and a while to get blood flowing they stayed warm.