14.   As  mentioned in the previous story, most of the crew were not available Saturday to enjoy the fresh snowfall, but were eager to get out for a ride Sunday. I didn't want to pass up an opportunity to ride, given our season is often so short, so I eagerly to joined them for another run.

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9.   Once again, the day was met with Sunny skies and cold temps as I met Todd on Power's Road in the Goulds and unloaded Project REV. Long, Bill and Mark Edwards met us there about 45 minuets later. This fall Long had been busy working on his 2009 Summit 600 Etec changing a lot of the parts back to stock to get it running correctly. He was anxious for a first test ride as I had been yesterday. Bill was riding his 2010 Yamaha Nytro XTX, Todd was on his 2010 REV XRS sporting a new 1.75" track & Pilot DS Skis, and Mark was on his new to him 2009 Red/Black REV 800r.

8.   We left the trucks and headed up the fields towards Chicken Farm road in the Goulds.

7.   The ride started off rough for Long, he made it to the top of the first field when he noticed the track tension was non existent! One of the track tensioners cracked off due to a defective mount, so he loaded up the sled and ran back to his buddy's house where he had spare parts.

6.   While he was gone, the rest of us headed into the fields, crossed over to Northern Pond Road and checked out Joyce's Trail. We were surprised to see it was actually in pretty decent shape, and surmised that we'd try to make Witless Bay line when Long returned. 

Long was gone about an hour and returned with two new track adjuster bolts and mounts installed on the rear skid. The rest of us left the trucks and headed into the fields then on to Chicken Farm Road where we made a high speed run to see how Long's machine was working. Last year, the previous owner's modifications worked against each other and the sled did not run right. The machine had a high-performance pipe installed and wasn't programmed to clutched to match the performance gain so it would hesitate and over rev to 9400 rpm! This year with all stock parts and gearing the sled ran properly at 8100 RPM right where it should be. The only hick up was that he blew a belt, so we pulled over and quickly swapped on a spare.

5.   Mark Edwards called it a day at this point, but we decided to press on and try to make Witless Bay Line. We picked up Northern Pond Road, riding until the end, then picking up Joyce's Trail. Again the trail was in decent shape, covered great in most spots, adequate in others and very little open water. We easily rode all the way to Witless Bay line, crossing over to the old Witless Bay Line Cabin Road, following it to Crane's North Atlantic. The only disappointment of this part of the ride was the last kilometre of the cabin road had been plowed so the skis were kicking up a lot of gravel.

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3.   The feed of fries, burgers and chicken we had at Crane's defiantly made it worth it though! I've never been disappointed in a feed there, especially during a snowmobile ride!

2.   After lunch we topped off the fuel tanks for the return ride to the trucks. Often we take the Southern Shore Poleline back, but with low snow conditions reported on the open areas, we opted to return the way we arrived on Joyce's Trail.

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith