There has never been a better model for budding sport riders than Yamaha’s beloved Raptor 250. It’s sporty, it handles excellent, it’s as reliable as your favorite dog, and it looks great. Even today, despite its size (and ours) we still have a blast out playing on the Raptor 250. With every ride, the Raptor 250 becomes our personal time machine and it reminds us of what we loved about riding in the first place.
If you’re chasing checkered flags or just want to smoke your buddies, you can do no better than with the Yamaha YFZ 450R. The YFZ has been winning championships since it was first introduced and it’s never slowed down.
It’s hard to find anything about the Polaris Sportsman 550 we didn’t like. From our first ride, we knew this model was really something special. The engine is powerful, the ride is satin smooth, and the ergonomics are excellent. We’ve used the Polaris Sportsman 550’s for every task from casual trail rides, to plowing snow, to pulling logs and they’ve always gotten the job done. They’re also extremely reliable.
The best ATVs always remind us of one thing: why we began riding in the first place. For play riding on the trials or the dunes, we want an ATV that offers nimble handling, good power, and sporty looks. Yamaha has sport ATVs for every size and skill level, but late last year they came up with a unique solution to fill the last hole in their sport ATV lineup.
It’s almost a little hard to believe an 800cc machine would not be the most powerful ATV in the lineup, but with Can-Am anything is possible. The Can-Am Outlander 800R definitely qualifies as a big bore machine by anybody’s standard, however, and it’s our pick as the best Open Class Utility ATV of 2012. What sets the Outlander 800R above other models in the Can-Am (and everybody else’s) lineup is the second generation SST chassis.
The old saying is, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog.” The best example of that in the ATV World is the Kawasaki Brute Force 300. While less than half the displacement of its bigger brothers in the Kawasaki lineup, it’s a huge overachiever on the trail.
Every time other companies begin to catch up, Polaris just presses their foot on the gas a little harder. Watching the ATV and Side x Side lineups of major manufacturers evolve over the last several years reminds us very much of a race, and in many ways it is. Rather than on the motocross or circle track, this race plays out in the showrooms, board rooms, and accounting offices. We do our best to stay impartial, but after a while, we almost feel a little sorry for some of the other guys.
People initially come to Ride Royal Blue for the trails, but it’s about much more than that for owner Sheila Westray and her crew. To them you’re not just another rider; you are a personal guest, and they’ve considered every detail for your visit right down to the food at the on-site restaurant.
Riding a familiar trail after the sun goes down is often a surreal experience. Features you recognize and know during the day blend into endless shadows and the trail takes on the characteristics of an entirely new area. Unless you’re very careful it’s even possible to become lost on a night ride, and more than once we’ve back tracked to a turn we should have made but blew by because we didn’t recognize it. Other dangers lurk in the shadows as well and creatures large and small often share the trail, oblivious to any danger.