Wisconsin-Douglas,bayfield,ashland,iron,vilas counties.All of the upper peninsula of michigan and the upper western side of the lower peninsula.the northern part of minesota north Dakota, Montana and every state with mountains in it have big open powder areas, heck in central wisconsin on the lake shores were huge powder areas and I saw tons of guys on powder sleds.There are way more than 5% of the riders on powder sleds and all of the performance sleds run trails which are just as tight as atv trails and have a MUCH larger turning radius,Point is reverse is a lazy luxury.

 

Barry, comparing the lack of reverse on a snowmachine to the lack of reverse on the pseudo race quad 400EX is not very accurate. The main reason most snowmachines don't come with the reverse as a standard feature is cost. It can cost upwards of $500 to add a mechanical system to a new machine. Here in Alaska a few years ago a lot of the guys that installed reverse on their Indys experienced chaincase failures. Reverse also adds a little bit more weight to the machines and increases the amount of parts in the chain case. I have never seen an ATV transmission failure caused by reverse gear. I have seen it a lot with snowmachines. Another thing is that reverse doesn't work all that well on a snowmachine. It works great for backing a machine out of a pick-up or off a trailer which may in itself make it worthwhile to the owner. However when you get off any groomed or hard surface reverse looses its effectiveness excatly where you need it the most. Ski-Doo is offering RER (electronic reverse) on a number of the new '02 machines. That system looks to be very promising. No extra weight because it works by reverseing the timing and running the engine backwards. It still will be limited in usefulness just because snowmachines don't go backwards very well (skis hang up, snowflap gets sucked under) but it will be useful for loading and unloading. Too bad the RER option wasn't available on my '01 MXZx 800 or I would have gotten it. The RER option is offered for the '02 MX-Z's so that kind of kills the argument that reverse doesn't belong on high performance machines.

If the manufactures were to build a dedicated race quad like the old 250R's and Quadracers then it would be silly to add reverse gear since it just adds a bit of weight and increases complexity. BUT nobody offers a race quad anymore and they keep putting out four stoke trail/sport type quads equipped with heavy electic start systems. ATV's simply arn't to the point where they feel building a purpose built racing quad is worthwhile. Even if you look back in ATV history the 250R's and Quadracers were not as specialized to be race quads as they could have been. In fact their intended usage was labled racing/recreation. If they had been strictly built fot racing they would not have included lights, skid plates, counterbalencers, or even wide fenders. I find it hard to beleve that some people consider the 400EX to be a race quad when it uses a motor based on the trail bike XR 400. Sure people race the 400EX but it would have been a better, more versital machine had it come with reverse.

 

On some points rockrider, I agree with you.The 400EX is not a racer, but the reverse thing on sleds is little off.The RER is an option on SKI-doos for the people looking for more comfort, if reverse belonged on that sled it would have come standard.I guess on some accounts we agree, i'm not saying reverse doesn't belong on the 400ex,i'm saying reverse is an add on that performance enthusiasts don't want and noone needs, it is a lazy feature for sport/trail/casual type riders.I hear lots of people trying to say the 400ex is a high performance machine and its just as fast or faster than the 250R and that is ridiculous.If people keep demanding reverse and in the same sentence referring to the 400ex as high performance machine and better than the 250R,I believe the manufactuers will see that and take from it the high performance ATVer is happy with electric start and reverse, when that is not true.From lack of new machines alot of high performance guys are buying 400exs and Raptors when i know if a new 250 was available they would have bought that in a blink of an eye.I am just upset at the ATVers "roll over" type attitude, we need to stick to our guns and let the manufactuers know we want a new REAL high performance machine!

 

It would be great if ATV riders demanded a hi-po quad made just for racing but I don't believe the market is there. Back in the heyday of the mid '80s we had all kinds of sport and hi-po quads to buy. The racing scene had the factories sponsoring riders and teams similar to what they do with motocross/supercross. Then with the hoopla over 3-wheelers the ATV race scene pretty much died away at the factory level in the late '80s. Since then we have seen the demise of the 250R, Quadracers, and Tecate 4. While racing lives on with privateers and small companies I don't think it has the numbers to support a big four manufactured race quad. Now it can be argued the other way that ATV racing's small scale is due to the lack of a new racing quad.

I wish the OE's would offer their hi-po quads similar to the way Suzuki offers their DR-Z 400. Electric start only, kick start only, or get both. This would be harder to do with reverse but you get the idea. Snowmachines have been that way for years. Now for next year you can buy two different versions of the Ski-doo MX-Z. One with RER and the other without. I believe the MX-Z with the RER factory installed costs a couple hundred more than the regular MX-Z. Heck the factory RER MX-Z's might even be a spring only sled. I need to go back and check their website.