I always enjoy hearing real life experiences about rides so I thought I would post my own.

The atv gods smiled upon me via permission to ride 2000 acres of some great land along the Missouri river. Lots of very steep hills, mud, wooded trails, and even a few creeks are all there. It took a few days to get our schedules worked out but we finally had a small group to go out. The vehicles involved were my P700, my old 660, KQ700, sp700EFI, and last but in no way least I believe it’s an 87 Foreman with solid axles front and back.
We spent the first hour or so just exploring some of the area, we were riding fast on existing trails that were fairly tight with many tight turns and lots of elevation changes. I was defiantly on the right machine during this part of the ride, my only complaint being the soft front suspension, I still need to get some new front springs. The rider of the KQ and I had a great time mixing it up. The KQ handled very well for an IRS machine. He said the suspension worked well but would occasionally buck the rear end during hard braking over bumps. We all switched machines and I was very surprised to find I enjoyed my time on the Sp700efi. It handled a lot better than I thought it would and the suspension was so plush. I was shocked at how smooth the ride was. I do however think it felt down on power compared to my p700 and even the KQ700. It was not slow by any means I just thought it would pull harder than the KQ. I did not ride my old Grizz on this portion of the ride. I did however spend 15 of the most ridicules minutes of my life trying to keep up with everyone while on the old Foreman. I was ragging that machine to an inch of its life, hanging way off on the corners trying to keep my speed up and keeping it pegged as the suspension punished me to within an inch of mine. It was actually pretty fun.
We came to an open field and the KQ driver wanted to drag race to see how his new machine would stack up. The results were pretty much as most people would expect. 1st p700, 2nd KQ, 3rd SP700efi, 4th Grizz. We did not switch machines as none of us are much into drag racing. Just incase anyone is curious the weights of the riders are P700 340lbs, KQ 270lbs, SP700efi 275s, Grizz 210lbs. On a top speed run the KQ was the fastest at 66mph, the p700 and grizz at 64mph with the sp700efi at 61mph. These speeds were calculated via gps.
Having enough of speed we decided to do some hill climbing, all of the riders are fairly comparable as far as ability is concerned with the rider of the grizz being the least experienced. The first few climbs were uneventful with all machines performing great. These were long hills with many 6-12 inch vertical ledges to make things a little interesting at times. Next the rider of the Honda decided he wanted to try a nasty looking hill. It was very steep with numerous ledges, the worst being about half way up. The biggest ledge was over about 2 ½ feet tall and vertical with another 2 foot ledge just 8 feet beyond that one up the hill. I was sure that he would go over backwards and encouraged him to not try it. He of course did and made it without too much drama his front end did come up after the first ledge but he was able to stay in the throttle and it came back down, he kept enough momentum to make it over the second large ledge and after that it was not as steep. I’m not sure of the reasons exactly, fragile male ego, the fact that I recently turned 30, or perhaps stupidity but I decided to give it a go myself.
I wanted to get enough speed up so I would not have to get on the gas too hard after the first ledge for fear that I would go over. I had good speed on the first part of the climb carrying the front end over some bumps and ledges. I hit the first large ledge and went air born for a couple of feet landing on my rear tires first. I needed to get back on the gas in order to make it up the next ledge. I hit the gas a little too hard and the front end came up fast. I let off and hit the rear brake and got it to come down but that was all it took to kill my momentum. I was far forward on the machine and gave it gas again but only spun and slipped backwards with my rear tires almost sliding back off the ledge I had just come up. I was 1 or 2 inches from going backwards off the ledge too what would have surely been a very nasty trip to the bottom of the hill. Fortunately my friends had positioned themselves on the hill and grabbed a hold of the front rack while I was sitting precariously on the edge. The SP700efi went around the side of the hill to get to the top and we ran his winch line to the front of my machine and he yanked me up. I defiantly had my adrenaline fix for the day. We decided to leave that hill alone the rest of the day and go find the creek bed to play in.
To get down into the creek we had to drop down a near vertical 4 ft bank where our front bumpers would then dig out a nice trench when we hit the bottom. There was another drop off from there to get to the actual creek. The sp700 owner loves mud and wasted no time in getting right in. The creek itself was only about 5 ft across but was surprisingly deep with a soft bottom. We all had a blast here but no one would follow the sp700, he had everything snorkeled and would go much deeper than anyone else was willing to try. The difficult part was getting out of the creek bed. We decided to get the sp700 up first as he had the biggest winch. The most fearless rider hopped on and gave it the juice while the rest of us pushed the big beast up the first embankment. To make up the next one we tied a rope to the front to keep it from coming over back ward and I pulled on it while the others pushed from behind. It worked well and we were soon winching the other machines back up. I will have to invest in a good winch anker as there was nothing to hook to for the first atv up. After 6 hours of riding we were all tired, wet, muddy, and happy. We all had new found respect for the little Honda as it climbed what no one else could. We only saw a fraction of the land that is available to us so I’m looking forward to another trip soon. Hope some of you were mildly entertained by my ramblings.

 

Great report, my man. Sounds like you guys had a good time.

And yes, we DO like to read about riding adventures since thats what this is all about...right?

As for the hill-climbing, I would have taken the easy way out. Yep, I'm a sissy and I'm quite happy about it. It keeps me and Brutey topside-UP [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Good to hear that someone had an older machine that did well. Our neighbor wants a quad soooo badly, but has VERY limited funds. He's afraid that he'll look lame next to my Brute and my other biddies Prairie. We keep saying that no matter what you have, the point is that you're "out there and riding" and thats all that counts.

Good Post dood!

Mike

 

Yeah that's a great story. I could almost picture it. I think you could have a career writing short stories.

 

Excellent write-up on your ride! I could easily picture the steep hill climb that you had trouble on...I think you had more guts than me to attempt that climb. I tend to avoid the steep hill climbs whenever I can...got a wife and kiddos at home who need me to show up for work on Monday and all that!

Happy trails...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Damn!!! I'm goin with you guys Mobyguzzer, hahaha. Sounded like a blast. Might be goin to Osawatomie KS this Sunday, I don't know how many acres but we still haven't explored it all and I've spent a little less than a day riding there. I'd rather just go with you guys though!! hahaha.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, it was a very good day. I feel really lucky the land owner gave us permission, it was a fluke deal. The Honda rider is a state trooper and pulled over an older gentlemen in a ratty old pickup. He was just letting him know that none of his rear lights worked. Some how they got on the topic of atv's and he offered up his land for riding. I am going to bend over backwards to keep a good relationship with this guy. We picked up 3 bags full of trash and yesterday a friend hauled out some junk cars for him. Plus I've got the wife baking cookies for him. My wife told me I wasn't this nice to her when we first met. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

I won't be rushing to climb anything like that again as I got a good tongue lashing from the wife(and not the good kind). It seems the one of my friends had told his wife the story and she reported back to my wife.

 

Definetly GUZZER keep that guy on your Christmas list , the area I ride in, in N.Y., has a lot of trails but alot of them are private or snowmobile trails that they dont even want us on in the summer. Even though my 02 p650 winched 40ft. I beams acrossed a creek for thier bridge. WHY cant we all just get along ? I know a few ruin it for others !!! EXCELLENT story. I can relate to that story I weigh 280 and love MUD and HILLS . OGGY DOGGY

 

wow great story. Imsurprised the sp700 outdit the grizzle-dizzle in a drag race. the grizzly is pretty fast. I havn't been able to ride my new brute yet, but once i do i'll be able to compare. i just didn't think the sp700 would be faster. Thats a scary spot you got yourself into on that ledge. I've had troubles like that, including my friends. alwyas leaves you alittle shaken up thinking "wow what if......". that must have been really steep ig you dragged ur bumper into the ground. i love down hilling but i havn't dragged my bumper on anything yet. whats the price of land out there? 2000 acres is alot. here in floridaits like 50-100k for 2 acres.