Over here in Europe, ATVing is mostly illegal, except you do it on your own property. Same with snowmobiling , except Sweden and Finland.

What about restrictions in the US & Canada? Do you have special ATV-trails or can you go whereever you want? I have seen many pictures where ATVs are crossing rivers or driving in the woods. Is that illegal like over here or can you guys really ride wherever you want?

Martin (Austria)

 

It is only illegal if you get caught! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Some places are better than others. Around here the police won't bother you as long as they don't get a complaint or see you on the road. Most the good places to ride near my home are not legal. We still do it anyway.

Other members luck out because they live in areas that have good trails and riding areas.

 

Canada is truely the best place to live if you are into ATVs or snowmobiles. There are thousands and thousands of square kilometers to ride on, and in most provinces there are very little restrictions as to where you can ride. The vast majority of the land mass is Crown land, which means it is pubicly owned. I know that this keeps all the die-hard capitalists up late at night thinking about how to privatize it, but for the ATV enthusiast it's paradise. Funny, but whenever I'm driving out-of-town I see all these places I think I'd love to bring the quad to to go exploring. But then, of course I never get to chance to explore all the places I can get to without ever loading up the truck, so when will I ever get to explore the stuff that is further away. Maybe if I live to be 100 I'll get to know 0.0001% of the quadable areas of Ontario. There's no hope of ever quading a small fraction of Canada.

When I read about all these people who have to truck their quads for an hour, and then pay to ride in a confined area I realize how lucky we are.

 

The available areas to ride are shrinking quickly in most areas. There are of course the enviromentalists that find my quad to be "offensive" to the land and there are also the riders that have no concern for our sport by littering and riding in areas that are illegal to ride and give us all a bad name. There are some state and federal lands that are designated for ATV or snowmobile use. There are the private lands that you can ride with permission from the owners and the Poker runs and Hare Scrambles through out the year which usually use some private and public land but these are typically for some organization to raise money so the private land owners are a bit more likely to let their land be used. ATV clubs are a way for people in some areas to either purchase or obtain privledge from private land owners to use their land. Its becoming more difficult to find or ride some areas that have been used by ATVers and snowmobilers for years because of the lawyers and their lawsuits against mostly foolish and reckless people that dont understand their own limitations or how to help help our sport or at least not give us a bad reputation.

 

Yeah, Canada is a dream for sure.

My former girl-friensd lives near Vancouver and she wants me to immigrate to Canada. But with empty pockets and without a job it is very difficult to get settled over there...

It ll stay a dream, I guess....but anyway Canada ist great, thats for sure.

 

Canada may be great, but the USA is the greatest!
Where I live I have every kind of riding condition available to me with a short drive. I can ride in the mountains on steep narrow trails, I can crawl around on the "slickrock" in southern Utah around Moab, I can desert race on desert trails, and I have two sets of major sand dunes within 2 1/2 hours of me totaling over 100,000 acres of pure sand both with 600-800 foot sand climbs. This is an ATV'er paradise.

 

Well, about Utah: There isnt much than sand and rocks if you compare to Canada. No problem with trees and bushes in your way. I have seen very good offroad areas when I came from Vail 2 yrs ago. And most time good weather if you compare to Canada or even Europe. They must have invented the rain in my area, I am sure.

Maybe Utah ist the best at all, ha? U´r a lucky man!

 

I am sure the province of Quebec is the best place to ride an ATV.

First of all we have 4 types of riding conditions for riding, depending on the season. In spring we have lots of mud. In summer, we can cover huge distances in logging roads. In fall, we have beautifull sceneries with leaves brightly colored Yellow, orange and red. In winter we have a lot of snow, which enables us to use tractors on caterpillars to level to trails, enabling us to cover 200+ miles in a day.

Also, we have more than 20,000 miles of connecting trails. We dont turn around the same area over and over again, WE GO PLACES, stop for lunch, go further away, sleep in a motel and come back the next day using a different trail. That's FUN !!!

In Quebec, ATV's are so popular that 45,000 quads are members, meaning they can go in any trails they want, without to pay a fee every times. Most trails in Quebec are well indicated, with turn signs, stop signs, distances for food and gas, etc. You can see the maps of most ATV clubs of Quebec at www.quadnet2.com.

In the rest of Canada, there are also a lot of public territories, except most of them are not indicated, you have to explore them yourself (which is also great if you are the explorer type).

The big difference in Canada compared to the the USA is lawyers, or the lack of them, I should say. I don't think there ever was a suit of an ATVer against the owner of a piece of land in Quebec. That is the difference, an owner can easily let ATVers cross is land without being scared of legal suits.

 

JackRabbit..Id like to take a look at some of your Canadian riding. Is there also a site in English? My ability to read French is non-existent.

 

I checked the pics at quadnet and you are definately right that Quebec is a paradise for ATV-riders.

Worth to immigrate, no kidding. You made me really jealous. And look at all the muddy sections, smile. Best is the pic with a floating-ATV that is converted as a raft.

Hard to believe that just Quebec is more than 3 times as big than whole France. If youve ever been through whole France - you know from what the heck I am talking about.

Its a huge ATV-paradise.