This past weekend Sam and I went up to Salt Lake to ride at the Jordan River OHV park. It has 3 MX tracks and 1 grand prix track. I was pretty excited since this would be the first MX track I’d ever ridden on.

The first thing I noticed when we got there was that I was the only guy on a quad. Everyone else was on a dirt bike. I’m still not sure if this was a sign of things to come, or if dirt bikes are just that much more popular in Utah.

After surveying the scene we found that the 3 MX tracks are are divided into novice (less than 125cc has right of way), beginner (greater than 90cc), and advanced (greater than 125cc Motorcycles only).

Since we both could, we both headed for the beginner track to see what this MX hype was all about. After the first turn there was a nice tabletop that got me pretty excited about how things were looking. After the second turn I ran into the mud. This track was had some very muddy sections. Two small jumps were totally unjumpable due to the mud, and one huge tabletop that should have been the biggest air of the whole track was trashed because of the mud.

After we both did a few laps, and repeatedly hit a long step-up at the end of the track Sam decided he wanted to see if the advanced track was in any better shape. Night and day difference. The advanced track was well groomed, had no mud and had about 3 times the amount of jumps. While many of the jumps were above Sam’s current skill level, he ended up spending the rest of the day there because the track was in such better shape.

I hope you can feel the frustration pouring out of my words. If we are both riding quads, Sam and I are very similar in skill level. However, since he just picked up dirt biking, I am a much better rider on a quad than he is on a bike. Being delegated to the beginner muddy track while he was able to ride on the nice advanced track soured the experience further for me. It’s clearly not a matter of keeping up. I’m not a great track rider, and I don’t have the best track quad, but I’m still a better rider than many of the dirt bikers I saw there.

I’m hoping that I just hit the park on a bad day, and the beginner track is usually in far better condition. I do want to go back again some time (hopefully just after the beginner track is groomed) so I can experience the track with my riding ability holding me back not the riding conditions. However the fact that by the end of the day I’d only seen one one other quad riding MX made me think that this wasn’t an isolated experience. Quad riders weren’t coming then leaving early, they weren’t showing up at all.

I hope Sam chimes in with his thoughts on the advanced track as well as the beginner track.

I did find that for track riding my Z is really underpowered. The one nice tabletop that wasn’t muddy had too short a runway for my Z. No matter how hard I tried the furthest I could jump was about 5 feet before the down slope. I’m sure on a 450 I could have easily cleared it.

Overall I had a lot of fun, but not nearly as much as I feel like I could or should have. It’s not somewhere I’d go every weekend especially with the $10 per rider fee and the hour drive. However I would like to go once or twice a year just for the experience. I hope in the future they do a better job of grooming the beginner track. As well as either letting ATV’s on the advanced track, or building ATV’s their own advanced track.

2009 has been an awesome year for ATV’s. Just about every major manufacturer has come out with something new and exciting. Can-am came out with true race ready versions of the DS-450 and they seem spectacular. Polaris released all new Sportsman’s with Dual A-Arms all around and power steering. They also redesigned their outlaws and they look great. KTM released it’s MX versions it’s quad. Suzuki redesigned the z400 and added EFI. And there’s more and more.

You may ask then why I think the Rancher is the coolest quad of them all? Well what’s different in 2009? Here’s an excerpt from Honda’s press release.

Meet the all-new 2009 Rancher AT. With a powerful liquid-cooled, fuel-injected 420cc longitudinally mounted engine, automatic/ESP five-speed transmission, Electric Power Steering, independent rear suspension-plus Honda’s selectable 4WD/2WD TraxLok and rugged torque-sensitive front differential-there’s no better choice for reliable and rewarding ATV recreation.

Lets dig right in.

• First of all the Rancher AT gets a power increase to match it up with the regular Rancher. It also gets a new transmission that is supposed to reduce power draw (the old AT sucked a lot more power than a traditional belt transmission).

• Next we have independent rear suspension. That’s right, the long running complaint about the Rancher has been it’s solid straight axle. A solid axle has some benefits especially for fire roads, but for 90% of you’re riding situations IRS is better. Its good to see it finally in the Rancher.

• Last and certainly not least. Power Steering. I own a 2007 Grizzly 700 and I have to tell you power steering is awesome. Not only has it made riding nicer for me, but every time I’ve let a girl ride the quad she’s expressed how much easier it is to steer than my brother’s Brute Force. I predict in the next 3 years every utility quad will have power steering.

Now all of these features can be found on other quads, so why am I so excited about the Rancher? Take that list and add one more item, mid-sized. At the time of this writing the Rancher is the only mid-sized quad with power steering. That my friend is what for me makes it the most anticipated quad of 2009.

I’ve been dying to see a mid-sized quad with EPS. As easy is my Grizzly is to steer, it is still a huge quad. My wife just isn’t very comfortable riding it. Since the Grizzly came out i’ve been thinking that the best market for EPS was not enthusiast but the casual rider. I can now get my wife a quad with all the bells and whistles in a size she can handle. With power steering and IRS on a quad her size she should be able to ride all day and not be too tired to ride again tomorrow.

Well the trip turned out great. We got off to a bit of a slow start, Jed said we could use his trailer so I didn’t unload the snowmobiles off of mine. After work we went to get his trailer and realized it wouldn’t work. It doesn’t really have sides for motorcycles and my truck doesn’t have room for them with the box. So we had to unload the snowmobiles off my trailer. Since I didn’t do that during lunch, we ended up being about an 30 minutes later than I thought we would be.

We ended up with an odd crew. Jake was on his new bike, Jed was on his bike, Tiffany was on their 400ex, Will was on his 450r, Katie was on Burkes 80, and Kate and I were on my Grizzly. That’s right Kate went on her first real 4 wheeler ride.

We did end up going to Monks Hollow. I always forget far it is off the highway. For future reference if you are trying to find it, the turn off is the first paved road after you pass some huge cliffs. The cliffs, and the paved road will both be on the right side of the road, if you are coming from Highway 6.

Monks Hollow was the same as always. Pretty dusty, gorgeously green, and all around a blast. We went up to the summit, but decided not to ride down the Long Hollow side.

My wife was a little worried about the dust for Kate, so we ended up giving everyone a large lead every time we started. Add that to the fact that we drove about half our normal speed, we ended up driving by ourselves most of the time. While we were driving she kept saying “Dad where’s your friends?” And when I would tell here that they were ahead of us she would say “Let’s catch them.”

On the way back from the summit, Kate decided we should sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So I sang at the top of my lungs all the way down the canyon. We mixed a few 3 blind mice and other songs into the mix, but mostly it was TTLS. Jed, Will and Jake took a detour up Teat mountain on the trip home and said they could hear us singing from on top of the mountain. I’m sure it was the most beautiful singing they’ve ever heard.

Despite leaving my house at 6:30 instead of 5:30 like I had wanted too, I think the trip went near perfectly. We got in a good couple hours riding. No one got hurt. And Kate came. I guess the only downside was that Tiff wasn’t feeling very well. She was a trooper, but I think she’d have just as soon stayed home in bed. Poor girl.

We decided that it was time to go and ride Long Hollow up Spanish Fork Canyon. I don’t know who’s idea it was to get up and 5:15 am to ride but we got up anyhow! We met Jim in Covered Bridge and loaded up his quad. We waited for Rich, and Jake to show up because they forgot to get gas which turned out awesome because Jim was out of gas.

We arrived at our destination, unloaded and watched some dude get out of his VW bug that he was sleeping in. I think he was pissed at us because we probably woke him up. We headed up the trail one by one. We were met with the cool mountain air, but we went fast enough to numb our hands. Once we got up on top the layers of clothing started to come off. It was really sunny and the switch backs got your blood running a bit. After a short break we raced towards our final destination (Teat Mtn).

We started on the trail that is considered a black on the trail rating system. This trail was pretty knarly on a bike but short work on a ATV. On the steep rocky switch backs caused some concern, I think this is the only time I have heard Jake complain of spinning out (hinting that his bike maybe was too powerful!). We crested the ridge and rode for a bit and came to a huge drift. Mike decided to ride his griz over it to see if this was just (check out the pics) one of the road blocks. I rode my bike around and down this really steep hill. But we should have listened to rich.

A few corners down from the first snow bank was a downed tree and more snow. We decided to turn back but now we had to get my bike and Mike’s griz up the snow bank. I knocked out a ledge for my bike tires, and Mike helped me push it up the steep drift. We then had Jim film Mike, Rich, Jake, and I attempt to help push the Griz up the snow drift. I thought we would have to give it a few try’s but I was wrong we were able to push him up the bank on the first try. Since our road was blocked we went back down the trail and road to Monks Hollow which ends up in a parking lot up Diamond Fork.

We cruised down the trail and arrived at the Parking lot were we took a break. The whole time we were riding Mikes tire was losing air, and it was showing when we stopped at Monks. We headed back up the trail towards the trucks, stopped a few times to enjoy the beautiful scenery. When we got back to the truck Mikes tire had 0 psi in it! Radial Maxxis tires are awsome. All in all it was a awesome trip that was well needed. but Next time we will get up at 4:30 am

Saturday Jed invited me to go riding. His sister Katie has a friend who is building a track up Goshen Canyon, so he decided to go camping with them. I ended up driving there in the morning.

We got ready to ride and Jeds brother Will told us that we weren’t supposed to ride on the track. This made us kind of frustrated, since it was the whole reason we came. We decided to explore the surrounding trails instead.

Let me tell you something that really frustrates me. We ride down this trail that goes up and over the mountain. We get to the bottom on the other side, get ready to turn around and see a sign that tells us the road we just came on is restricted to motorized vehicles. I promise there was no sign where we started. I try my best to only ride on designated trails.

I know that there are lots of people doing their best to shut down as much of the world as they can to ATV’s. It just frustrates me when there are no signs, or more likely, someone has vandalized the signs and torn them down. The guy who owns the track did say that it was private land, but the owner doesn’t mind people riding on the trail, at least on his side of the mountain. So hopefully we didn’t contribute to the negative attitudes towards ATV’s.

Anyway back to riding. This “Illegal” trail we rode on was pretty cool. It had some really steep and rocky sections. Jed ended up flipping a rock lose and doing a 180 on his bike. I know it kinda hurt when is handlebars hit him in the side, but I must admit it looked pretty cool from behind.

I have to say though, that this trail really helped impress me with how good a rider Jed’s wife Tiffany is. Some of these sections were quite steep with rocks all over the trail. There was also a long section that was very off camber. She kept up with us and didn’t complain a bit. I know my wife would have made me drive up some of the hills.

I did say this was about a track didn’t I? When we got back from our little private property excursion, we drive towards camp and see Will and his friend racing around the track that we were told not to ride on. Apparently he was wrong, and we could ride on the track. It’s a good thing too, because there were no trails around. Everything trail but the one we had gone on was gated.

The track is pretty sweet, however it isn’t quite finished yet. First of all it has no jumps. This kind-of disappointed me because I love jumps. One S turn about 3/4 of the way through the track wasn’t quite finished yet and had some rough spots. It was also very very dusty.

I’ve never ridden on a real track before so I was pretty excited to give this one a try. This track had some crazy turns. There were 2 U-turns on the down hill slope of very steep hills. I have to admit my first lap around the track I wasn’t ready for how steep the hills were nor for the turn I would have to make on them and I went off the track both times. Despite my set backs, I was able to get around the track faster than Jed on his bike, Katie and her friend on a Raptor 660, and Tiffany on their 400ex.

After our first race we lined up with Will and his friend on their CR450’s, Jed on the Raptor, and me on my little Z. Let me just say that power makes a big difference. There are a few straight-away’s that go up some hills and the bikes and Jed were able to really pull away from me. I tried to catch them in the corners but between the golf ball sized rocks Will was spraying at me and the dust so thick I couldn’t see 5 feet in front of me I decided I really didn’t mind losing this 1 lap race.

Jed, Will and I then did 2 Timed laps each. Will went first and did his first lap in 2 minutes 35 seconds. I went next on and did 2:38. I must admit it felt pretty good to be so close behind will. Jed then did a lap on the raptor at 2:36. For lap 2 Jed rode his 400ex and got 2:51. Will got 2:33, and I shaved a second off to get 2:37.

For comparison one of the top racers in the country did the track a few weeks earlier and got 2:18, and Katie on the raptor was able to do a lap in 3:05. That means I’m about as much better than Katie, is a Pro is better than me. I think I can live with that.

I have to admit the competitor in me really wanted to beat Jed. It did make me feel a little better to know that on a similarly CC’d machine I beat him by 15 seconds, and and he only beat me by 1 second on the Raptor.

After our timed laps we headed back to camp for a snack. We asked the owner if we could use the bobcat sitting there to build a Jump. He said yes, so we tried to build a table top out of a bunch of dirt that was lying around, but the bobcat was having issues. The track owner then came over and started to build us a jump with his back hoe. He was making good progress, but then started too feel paranoid about people suing him for using this jump on an unfinished track. So he stopped.

He turned a dirt pile into the worlds smallest table top. It was OK to jump off of, but definitely not what we had in mind. Will found a way to jump off the side and land on the jump which was pretty sweet on his bike. Jed and I kinda just drove over the jump a few times. I tried to actually jump it twice, and came as close to crashing as I have in a long time. We’re talking landing on 1 tire leaning completely the wrong way and getting slammed forward on to the other corner of your quad. This was a bike only jump it seemed.

I know Tiffany got several pictures of us hitting the jump, although she missed me almost crashing because she was too busy waiting for me to die. I’ll try to get Jed to post the pictures.

When the track is done I think it will be awesome. They are hoping to have it ready so it can be used for WORCS this fall. There will also be at least one more track added to the area. I hope to go back in a month or so when things have come closer to completion and there are actually jumps.