[The Flying Pumpkin]

Well, I must say my riding weekend came to a quick halt. We all went out today, despite the -37 degree temperature and the high being only -25. Started where my visor kept frosting up. Which when it's that cold it always does. Then my hands were cold and I had just installed my new handguards last night. I'm sure they must have helped. Gosh, I could only imagine how cold my hands would have been without them. We stopped at a warm up shack and got a fire going to warm ourselves up. From there, we carried on.

Trails were beautiful, freshly groomed and no tracks. Guess we were the only crazy ones out. Everything was perfectly fine until I was coming up to this corner. And you know, it's like my gut told me that there was somthing wrong with the corner, or that it was a corner not to trust. So I backed completely off the throttle, went into the turn, then found myself rolling on the ground. I caught a rut, and that was it. Smacked a tree on the outside of my ski and bent the ski inwards, and up. The ski saddle was bent in and up, and the carbide same thing. The control arms all show cracked paint where the welds are. So the whole right side has been stressed. Looks like the whole right side of my sled needs to be replaced. Body is okay. There's a scrape from the tree on one spot, but otherwise the body and engine run fine. We were about 5 miles from a gas station so I crippled it there and left it there. Then doubled up with a friend, went home, got the truck and trailer and came back to pick the sled up.

I'm so angry. I'm such a careful driver, never been an idiot and I never even came into the corner fast at all. I was cruising comfortably in complete control. And how many times do you catch a rut through a turn and pull out of it thinking...."gee that was close." I never even thought I'd not get through it until I was picking myself up.

I realize it could have been worse. I'm fine, but just seems so stupid for that to have happened. bang your head Oh well, into the shop she goes to get fixed. I just dread the bill now. These darns things are expensive enough as it is. Gosh darnit!

I'm bummed.....

 

[The Flying Pumpkin]

Hey Everyone, thanks so much for the responses and saying "glad to hear you're alright." Like I said, I'm fine, just pride was hurt more than anything. I'm the careful rider and I was preaching to the two with me who are rookies in this sport to be careful. Been more worried about them and it turns out to be me who catches an edge and can't pull out.

AB, I read your post about Linda on Friday. That's crazy! I'm so glad she was alright, can only imagine what was going through your head when you found her.

Alleycat, yes I have insurance. I'm going to call them up and see what they say. I'm not totally sure whether to claim it under insurance or not as I don't want to get penalized for it. Depends I guess on what the repairs work out to be.

Snowmsl, normally when I go into a corner, I usually go wide coming in, then hug the inside, and normally I back off the throttle coming up to the turn then throttle through. In this case, I was sitting middle of the trail and the turn was weird. There was a left arrow sign, but then the trail suddenly curved slightly right before the left turn. And the arrow showed it as being a gradual turn, but it ended up being more of a 90degree angle turn. But I backed off the throttle as it curved right slightly, turned left, caught an edge and just couldn't pull it out the rut it put me in, and smacked the tree. Buddy behind me confirmed I wasn't going fast at all, we predict 20 mph TOPS, but not even sure it was that fast. Either way, hit the tree the right way to do the damage, but thankfully not hard enough to hurt myself. I actually rolled off the left side of the sled and banged my right knee I guess on the handlebar. Thankfully I rolled off that side, weird when you think I'm in a left lean, and smack the right ski on the outside, but I guess the sled bounced left and that's what helped. Who knows. So my question here is......if I stayed on the throttle more, do you think I would have got out that rut? Either way, it's irrelevant now, but you can't help but wonder. Would it have helped? Or would I have rolled it. Maybe we won't even think about that one.

Badgerfan, crappy to hear about you. Yes it sounds like the F6's had a bad weekend. I hope the concussion is better.

FroFro666, We were riding the trails north of Beausejour. We took the Stefaniuk Trail across to Milner Ridge. Were heading out to Pinawa and just crossed the Milner Ridge Hwy....weren't even 1 mile in when we hit that left turn and I smacked the tree. So we came back out and I crippled the drunkard down the old rail bed line to Seddon's and left the sled there. Doubled up with one of the guys back home and came back with the trailer. There were some other snowmobilers at the gas station there at the time. A couple with nice cats and one was looking. All I kept thinking to myself was "don't look don't look."

But yes, to sum all this up, I'm glad I'm alright. Just one of those things. You just feel more stupid than anything I think that it happened. Even my dad said "You of all people!" Go figure. Well my buddy's dropping it off at the dealer for me this morning sometime so hopefully they can have it fixed by the weekend.

I've attached a couple pictures of the damage. Worse looks to be the ski, but where the welds are on the wishbones, the paint is cracked, so they need to be replaced too. It's not going to be safe riding on that knowing it was stressed that much. I guess if the tree was smaller, things would have bounced better, but the tree was about 10 inches in diameter.

 

[The Flying Pumpkin]

Hey Goddo, oh my that SUCKS! And again, how many times do we all look back to
make sure the person behind us is still there, turn and look forward and think "whoa
crap! That was close." As you're drifting off the trail or something stupid. All my
hood and side panel are fine and we all know how much the darn PLASTICS cost!

Turns out I'm taking my sled to the autopac claim center in the morning, then to the
dealership on my way to work after that. I found out I won't lose merits on my
licence which is good, but I will get a surcharge on my collision premium for the
next three years. I'm guessing I'm looking at a $1500 repair bill minimum with
labour, so in that case, it's worth taking the three years of extra surcharge. I
don't know how much slower I can go through corners, but let me tell you, I
really don't want to hit anymore trees. That's not fun at all.

I read elsewhere on the forum about someone mentioning lowering the pressure
or something in the air shocks in the front and that'll make the sled less tippy
through the turns. I never thought of it until after I read that today, but do any
of you think that'll help me any? I'm only 110lbs, and I keep analyzing what
happened and wonder if that edge I caught had something to do with that too.
It happens so fast as you're all aware and I wonder if it did tip a little when
I caught that edge. I just don't know though.