Give me about 10 minutes. I'm uploading a video of Justin, my 12 year old son climbing one of the fingers (chutes) on the piped Raptor. He's going up one of the easier ones but I think would have made it up any of them. I've never updated the Little Sahara page from our last LS Utah/St Anthonys/Montana trip in July 2003. Maybe I should, I only have a couple videos to put on that page. Lazy I guess. LOL

 

Here ya go.

Justin climbing one of the fingers on the face of Sand Mountain Utah. 1.7mb

 

I have a Raptor with a Yosh slip on, my brother has a 450 with a Yosh slip on also. Last time at the dunes I rode the 450 quite a bit. It does go, no question about that, but it was not very comfortable at all, I had a hard time keeping my thumb on the throttle it rode so rough, and the handlebars hit my knees when turning sharp. After riding it for awhile I got back on my Raptor and it felt like a Cadillac compared to the 450. We did some short drag race also, the 450 would win by about 3 bike lengths.
So I guess I would say if you are looking for the fastest it would be the 450, but if you are looking for a bike that rides nice and has enough power to get you where you want, I would suggest the Raptor or Z-400.

 

Sam... yer machine would make it, but just like wshrdskin said, a stocker w/ a 200lb pilot would have a very tough if not impossible time @ it. The chute furthest to the south/left is the toughest. The runup to that particular chute is a little sand trail. You don't have to take that trail to get to that chute, but it's part of the challenge. That little sand trail will definitely slow you down versus the other approach.

I ride my dirtbike in 5th WOT through any sand whoops and it's still very tough to get to the top of that chute. When I take in on the YFZ, I have to sit way up on the tank and doing that causes the rear to spin and not dig. It's a **** hill.

Just watched wshrdskin's vid. His boy isn't all the way to the south - the steepest/softest part. It's very tough to make out in the vid.

With the sand trail that leads up to it, it would be impossible for (2) quads to race it.

 

kintama-
1. Raptor= effortless quad, great power easy to ride responds well to bolt ons. Lots sold and few problems
2. yfz450= takes more effort to ride but the reward is huge
3. Banshee= the harder you like to play the funner the ride gets
4. Z400= smooth and fun but low on power
5. predator=fast yugo, bring a rope and a bucket to put the chesey parts in as they fall off
6. V-force= Not enough seat time to tell but i may put one in the stable
7. DS= sherman tank will run over anything in its way

 

Heres another of my brother on his stage 3 DS going up the same finger only around the right hand side.

Larry 1.9mb

2 years ago when I was there and piped and jetted, my Raptor, with my 240lb *** at that time had to go up the drag race lane on the face on this side of the hill (not the fingers) in 1st gear starting probably just past half way. And it was starting to bog until you crest about 3/4 of the way or so when it starts getting less steep. I wouldn't have even considered the fingers at that time. Last year was a different story. I had bigger ***** and a stronger quad so the fingers were fun then. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

The actual drag race hill (you can see in other videos in my sig) I was going up in 3rd and shifting to 2nd when piped and now I can blow up it in 3rd all the way. This mountain is worth the trip all by itself. There's lots of smaller bowls etc on the back side and plenty of dunes elsewhere to play on.

 

Looking at the base of the hill, you see a wide area of sand then a little island of bush and then you can make out a tiny spec of a trail. Follow that trial up and you can kinda see how steep that thing gets.

Dunereview.com pic..

 

my first year pred doesnt fall apart any more or less than the first year raptors... and atleast my company covered everything =)

 

Now the second vid shows the sand trail pretty well - it's just above the rider a bit at the beginning of the vid. I'm just commenting so you guys can get some idea of how steep it is. I'm done hyjacking this thread.

 

It's your home turf. Who better to narrate? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]