visnow

Love winter, nothing like a good snowfall, followed by clear blue sky the next day. The worst mountain sled
I ever had was a 2006 Yamaha apex. It's motor was flawless, but no electronic reverse on a four stroke so had
to put a mechanical gearbox on it - taking it's dry weight up to 610 lbs.(no nimbleness at all).; When I got stuck it was like someone was sitting on the machine while trying to free it.  I was riding with friends with summits one day - took one of them for a run in the mountains and rode a 2007 summit 800 the next winter.  Don't get me wrong I still have confidence in Yamaha engineering - I have a 2009 Grizzly ATV.

Love purpose tools - the latest very useful one I bought is for repairing the ends off a broken winch cable for
atv's and the like. This tool is about the size of a bolt cutter. I had been using my atv winch for lifting the
snow blade up and down for three winters and the end portion started to fray and one day it broke.  This device
has two differnt sized cutting shears up near it's head.  It cuts the cable very cleanly (after I tightened up the bolt holding the shears together). I also got aluminum blocks with the proper hole size for the cable - also from CANADIAN TIRE.. The tool comes with a crimper.....just thread the fresh section of cable through one side of
the block and loop back through the other and then apply the crimper to it and you are good to go, and looks
factory in appearance. I had thought of using those micky mouse U-clamps with the bolts - glad I found this
tool.  I could see that the very end of the winch cable was the only part being stressed.  and would eventually
give out and I wondered what I would do when this happened.  Now In literally five minutes or less I can have the situation back to new condition and looking factory installed.  Don't try cutting the cable with a bold cutter!. You can cut it, but it is frayed and you have extreme difficulty threading it into the holes in the aluminum block.

I prefer off trail riding - always take a GPS along (Garmin 450 t) and make a map of all significant rides.
I don't do any significant jumping, Sidehill pretty well, but try to avoid avy paths.