Finally.

I rode Washington streets today. Me and Tomas did 21 miles. We rode frozen lake. Lot of people on Atvs and snowmobiles, ice fishing dudes. Nice clean ice. It was hard to move. I tried softer snow on the edge. I was buried in two seconds. Fortunately Tomas was around. I was able to winch myself up quickly.
Will post vid. later.

 

The rule of thumb in NH for winter riding, where it's allowed, is generally that there should be 6" or more of snow and below freezing temperatures. We did a trip up to the Warren, NH area today and the trails were good but the lake wasn't so much fun. There was 1.5" of ice over 6" of melt water from the last couple days. Most of the lake wasn't like this but I managed to find an area and broke through. Could not get the traction to climb up onto the good ice and kept digging through the thin, top layer. Took 2 quads tied up in tandem, hooked to my X2, with me in AWD, to get out of it. I have SOOOOOOO much ice built up under my machine that it may not thaw out until May..... When the first of the 4 tires finally climbed up on the good ice it was a really great sensation to say the least. My son, wife, and buddy's son took my truck home as they were all cold and my buddy and I went from Warren up to Franconia. Good ride, but boy was it cold when we were loading the quads on his trailer.

 

I saw an atv that broke through the ice today- there were about 20 guys ice fishing on this small pond near my house, and a few of them had atv's-

I guess one guy went too close to where the street drain dumps into the pond and he broke through- they were trying to yank it up as I was driving by- then I talked to a wrecker at the gas station down the road a bit who was gassing up and heading over to help out.

It was a cold one today for sure- that wind hurts! 12* right now (4am)

 

Thats great that you guys are out there riding,, im gonna have to check out Washington and Warren area with you guys sometime,, cant wait till 26th!!
Yep,back to winter bitter cold,its 10 degrees at 6am here in Thompson.

 

Guys, video is up:
YouTube - Ice ATV riding on the lake
Constant spinning and sliding.

 

Before this winter I got grip warmers and a thumb warmer for the throttle. Highly recommend them. I just got a 4xl modular helmet off eBay that kept my face and head warm. Long johns, and quilted flannel lined jeans with a Cabelas Dry Plus jacket in a jacket and I kept warm pretty good. What got us really cold was taking off the helmets and loading up the quads and when we had to take off our gloves to do the tie downs. It was 14 with the wind howling. I'm glad my buddies truck had heated seats!

 

That's what we all were doing until I broke through. Lots of drifting, 360s and power slides. Great fun. It wasn't until I went down the other end of the lake that I hit the weird spot. All I can figure was something melted and ran out on that section of lake and froze over Friday night into the time we got there. Our winches got quite a workout. I moved over to let one of the kids go by and my front right tire got caught in the soft stuff and pulled the two right side tires off the trail. Had to winch out using a tree and a ****** block pulley. Pulled out 2x on the trails, once on the lake. Pulled out my buddy's son 3x, pulled out my buddy, 2x. Busy day.

 

Pretty busy day. Nice workout. Yes it is very unpredictable. I kept all the time on ice covered part maybe 5 acres. Farther on the lake I saw softer snowy cover. Just in case I didn't try that area. Later that day I was warn by guy, to not cross the lake. He was stuck in the middle for few hours.

 

Oh yes, recently installed grip and thumb warmers, .....love it.

 

I have the grip / thumb warmer also- makes a big difference riding in the cold- sub freezing new england weather, you can actually enjoy the ride instead of painful frozen fingers

I also bought battery heated socks which work awesome- one d cell battery lasts a good 6 hours. I'd love to get one of those heated helmets with the face visor but they cost so damn much- maybe next winter I just dropped almost $1k on these 27" 589's and itp 212ss rims and having them mounted hopefully I'll be able to post a few pics of it tomorrow...