Based on this muse, I thought it would be appropriate to remember an old friend in this post. Steve Brand has been involved in motor sports as long as I can remember. He is an avid snowmobiler, dirt bike enthusiast and more recently a ‘wheel chair’ (ATV) pilot spearheading the annual invitational Brando rides held in Haliburton county.

You might not know who Steve is but I bet you are familiar with his acclaimed body amour, Tek Vest . He designed this exclusive product and established his company Tekrider shortly after retiring from a long stint with BRP Skidoo.  I first heard of Steve when he was involved with the Canadian ISDT teams back when CanAm was a competitive dirt bike and ATV’s had only three wheels. He went on to resurrect the Skidoo snowcross effort in the early nineties as their factory race team manager before banging heads with someone who was too dull to realize a good thing when he had him…

What many don’t know about Steve– he is also a lieutenant colonel in the Canadian military reserves and currently deployed in Afghanistan. I received this Word Document, update from Steve [ Brand Afgn ] with a few photos included which I thought I would post for download as a tribute and salute of support from the home team, smack dab between Canada Day and Independence Day in the States.

A couple of background notes, Steve is known as V-man these days for his affection towards Yamaha touring sleds which he rides the wheels off, surprising many of his ‘X-man’ pals. He still competes gregariously through his sons Jeff and Kevin who race yellow sleds for Northland Rec on the CSRA circuit. The photo with Steve standing beside the pasty civilian is our Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (closest thing we have to Obama). Happy July 4th to my American friends and thanks to Steve and all our troops!

‘Keep rockin’ in the free world…’

cheers cr

We all know, balloon tired ATV’s do not mix all that well with snowmobiles on the groomed trails, what with the speed and handling differences and all. But what happens when  tracks replace the wheels? First thing is the reduction in gear ratio (approximately 40%) which brings down the top speed significantly. Next the added traction and resulting loss of wheel spin adds a large measure of control and stability on loose snow.

I have spent some significant time on board the tracked Griz and am pretty comfortable with the thought that these machines can share the trail quite nicely with snowmobiles. I didn’t always think that way but with more testing experience I have changed my mind. It may become a bit more of an issue as more and more ATV’s get the rubber band treatment and start eyeballing some of the thousands of KM of snowmobile trails. Way I see it, if they were to purchase a trail pass and practice the same rules of the trail as snowmobiles, good enough but it will take a lot of convincing to ever get it past the federations and their insurers I would think.

Part of the durability testing we performed on our track kit was to sponsor a local snowmobile clubs grooming operation and our machine pulled an AFMI drag for the Six Star club during  most of the past season, replacing the trusty old VK 540 (and rusty old Skandic) that were in their fleet. Turns out the Grizzly made for a better grooming unit than the sleds for pulling, used way less fuel and never missed a beat.

The track kit has evolved a lot in the past five years. They are lighter, more durable and easier steering (especially with EPS) and ours is now suited for four season use, mud, snow rock, whatever you care to throw at it. Sporty ride? Absolutely not, but go anywhere you point it… yep. Easy enough to throw the wheels back on in the summer if you are running mostly trails and come winter, bolt up the tracks and continue to enjoy your investment year round. The traditional ‘Bravo’ customer may be well served to jump ship and become a year round ATV rider.

One thing the TRIC ATV will do that no sled can, is push a snow plow. The track system is perfect for pushing a blade through powder and a heck of a lot more fun than shoveling or holding onto a  Briggs and Straton vibrator while it covers you in snow spray.

Kits retail in Canada for $3850, added to the cost of a Grizzly, you are getting the whole deal for less than the price of a new performance sled. Apples and oranges for sure. You’ll never cover the ground like on a sled ( think 40 miles a day opposed to 400) but, for some, a serious consideration. So what are your thoughts? Should tracked vehicles be allowed on the snowmobile trails? Would you ever consider owning one? Just curious….

cheers cr

Snowmobile testing is a part of the  job I have always been intrigued with. As a matter of fact it had a lot to do with my application for the product manager position years ago and resulting move from god’s country (BC) to Ontario (perhaps not the smartest lifestyle choice but definitely my best career decision ever).

Testing has added quite a few stamps to my passports over the years, not to mention many memories  and introduced me to some remote parts of the globe I would never have experienced otherwise. Often I have taken extra time to explore the culture and countryside while there and have not one single regret.

Our Japan testing base is located on the northern island of Hokkaido. This is ‘foothill terrain’, very hilly and steep. Yamaha required a long smooth straight trail for top speed and acceleration runs. The solution was to bull-doze and back fill tons of real estate to create a strip worthy of a 747… Leave it up to our engineers to come with this! Here’s a shot taken of the first Venture GT FI prototype in development. The good looking squid checking out the ergo’s  is our infamous product manager, Jon Blaicher.

Just a little bit south of our Shibetsu test center is another island that features some very unique terrain (and individuals). The southern  island of New Zealand offers up winter in July. Yamaha gained access to a facility used by Toyota as a ‘proving ground’ for their vehicles along with some of their vendors (tire companies etc.) It was here that I trekked to validate the new 4-stroke Venture Lite. I remember arriving after close to 30 hours of non-stop travel, jumping in a rental car (jet lagged) and setting forth through the streets of Queenstown which by the way has no traffic lights, just round-about’s at the busy intersections. To make matters more interesting the steering wheel on the right and driving on the left with no co pilot or clear idea where the heck I was going. The valleys leading up to Wanaka are flanked by some of the gnarliest hills I have ever seen and it is easy to understand why they chose this area to film the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. One thing struck me as absolutely awesome. The legal system in New Zealand prevents land owners from being held liable (sued) by anyone who happens to get hurt on their property. You want to bungy jump off my bridge? You want to build some trails with jumps and skinnies? No worries mate, good on you. Man would that be refreshing to have over here!

Jumping across the planet, pretty much kitty-corner to Wanaka sits Walles, a mainstay for Yamaha testing in Scandanavia and birth place of many of our utility based sleds: Enticers, Bravos and of course, Vikings. I won’t tellyou the story of the VK 3 test I attended there a few years ago (there are actually several good ones) suffice to say it included some Reindeer bits, guns, Laplanders, headlights and blonde locals, all good! In this shot, Norwegian  good-ole-boy Ole-Johan Haga, project leader Karl Ishima and myself working on the Viking Porfessional prototype.

No snowmobile testing discussion would be complete without mentioning Alaska. I have more stories about Paxson than all the rest put togther. This highway juntion lodge out along the Alaskan pipe line has hosted Yamaha testing for many, many years. We didn’t always have much snow to work with but it was always cold. Makes one wonder how our J-hook bar-grip warmers ever made production . Testing up here normally starts in early November and goes on until things freeze up back in Wisconsin around Christmas time. In this shot you can see the first prototype of the Apex shadowed by Paxson mountain, makes me think of playing pin-ball through a Caribou herd just looking at it.

cheers cr

If things go according to plan I may be able to speak ahead of the traditional embargoes here on Sled Talk to some degree. I’ve always wanted to share more about our new model direction and development but without the blessing of the other distributors and factory, my hands are tied. I can’t expand much more at this point except to say I am cautiously optimistic, I may be able to give you folks the first official glimpse of our future right here.

On the accessories front we are working on some really cool items for snowmobile and ATV that I hope to be able to tell you about this month. ‘Supplier sourced’ is the latest internal buzz-word that’s getting lots of attention.

This is where we simply select a popular accessory and move it through our distribution system under its own brand name. This method saves a lot of time and effort in as much as we don’t have to reinvent the wheel by designing our own competitive product to sell under the Genuine Yamaha mark. Another benefit is we can consider some products which may be too difficult or risky to produce on our own.

A good example of a supplier sourced accessory can be found in the SnowTracker carbide runners. We have signed an agreement with SnowTracker to distribute their skags  through all our snowmobile dealers (they don’t know it yet as this was just confirmed today).  I used these carbides last season on my Apex and was quite pleased with the results. We’ll also have replacement bits in our inventory and the products will be priced very competitively.

Another area where I will be spending some time with my team this summer, is in our accessory marketing. I believe we can do a better job of getting you more information through more channels on new products and their benefits. This is not to say things aren’t working now but in these tough economic times, it is both a good exercise and a worthy challenge to make sure we are maximizing our efforts. One of the key elements of this new strategy is found in the past. Back in the early eighties, Yamaha Canada had a line of motocross accessories that were branded ‘TRIC’ (some of you may remember)… TRIC was a strong name that represented quality products that were: Tested / Reliable / Innovative and Canadian… kinda catchy huh? Anyway, stay tuned on this one as you will be hearing more on this over the coming months.

I had mentioned last month about a speaking engagement I accepted to discuss the concept of a large company (such as Yamaha) allowing an employee (such as yours truly) to engage with others online in a public conversation with its corporate blessing (such as Sled Talk). We are still the only motor-sports company doing this in Canada and judging from the questions and response we got from this audience of experts, we remain somewhat of an anomaly within traditional circles. One of the weirdest things to come out of this is we have been invited to present our model to literally the most conservative and powerful organization in Canada… the federal government. Go figure. Not sure if I’m going to do it, but interesting none-the-less.

If you haven’t done so, it’s time to ’summerize’ your sled for storage and sharpen your fishing hooks. I already posted some tips on putting the sled away and if you have any doubts, don’t hesitate to drop me a question and I’ll get it answered.

Oh I forgot to mention, I awoke Sunday morning on the cusp of June to a freaky sleet and hail storm at my cottage (which is currently gutted and impossible to heat), ’snowflakes and black fies’… indeed!  cheers  cr

John and I had the pleasure of doing some ATV’ing the other day with a couple of Grizzlies outfitted with track kits. It truly is amazing what these things are capable of doing given the additional traction and stability provided by the big foot print. They will not replace a snowmobile but I can sure see why many guys are converting their bikes in the winter. Quite a giggle.

On the subject of tracks, I tried my skills on another interesting toy last weekend. A good friend hooked me up with his mini-excavator to dig a new foundation for my cottage. All motor heads should have a chance to operate one of these things some day. Double joy sticks, thumb buttons and foot pedals controlling multiple functions simultaneously is enough to challenge anyones mechanical motor skills. End of the day I didn’t wreck anything (too badly) and the dirt all ended up back in the hole. It was a humbling experience to witness Anthony, a truly skilled operator, take the controls, throttle it up and demonstrate how it should be run. Kind of like me putting in a hot lap on a snow cross course feeling all good about myself and then watching Steve Taylor take on the same lines…. serious shrinkage!

I had the pleasure to meet a fellow out in Revelstoke through his participation here on Sled Talk. Steve Burdick and his dad have a large collection of old  sleds assembeled under the banner of the New Hampshire Snowmobile Museum. Well Steve and his wife just brought a new Yamaha pilot into the world… congratulations Steve, looks like Jayden is just abouth the right size for that Nytro!

Well it’s just about time for me to head back up to the cottage to feed the black flies. Good thing I ride only Yamaha’s as it would really suck to break down on the trail this weekend… one more advantage to winter. Black flies and snowflakes hmmm kinda sums up my life these days

cheers cr

I’ve known Todd for a long time now. He came on board back in the Coon Rapids era as a research and planning guy. His impact was quickly felt as the data he produced became a large part of the ‘product plan’ and international debates regarding our new model development. He was also the first fellow officially appointed to monitor the emerging new world of the Internet, watching for trends and information relative to the sno-mo biz. Now-a-days Todd finds himself sitting at the helm as we navigate through these difficult economic times. Gotta hunch those days in Minneapolis seem far away now…

Then their is Wade our (by my standards) relatively new marketing guru. Let me tell you beneath his mellow exterior facade lurks an animal who, once behind the bars of a Nytro, becomes unleashed, wreaking havoc upon the trail but I digress. Wade comes to us from a deep background in the magazine publishing business with many years invested in snowmobile. Judging from some of his sixty dollar words and quick rebuttals I would have to guess the man has himself quite an ‘edumaction’ as well.

I mentioned some ‘young guns’ in my last post, well Andrew qualifies as one of them in his position of product manager for the U-crew. Another young man with a lot on the ball. Brains, athleticism and passion for motor sports makes for a potent cocktail and ‘Drew has copious amounts of them all.

This was the first time for me to meet Eric but I doubt it will be the last. I never got a lot of his background but when the conversation turned to finding exotic motor parts he sparked to life. Something about his rare factory R7 Superbike and the Euro contacts he had made… Eric is in command of the US fleet of demo ride teams and trade show exhibits, a huge logistical challenge in itself.

We had an extensive agenda that focused largely on our 2011 models  and all the preparation which goes into a new product line introduction.

Things like photography and video shooting, advertising and support materials but before that we needed to develop our ‘message’ and strategize the best way to deliver it all. So much of what we do can be looked at as ‘traditional’ and the template we use is predictable as hell. I think we all want to try to move the needle and do things differently and to that we explored some new ground. It’s no big secret that much of our prior marketing has been very ‘feature’ or tech related, speaking to our 4-stroke direction and Yamaha technology but outside of our ‘Johnny Skeptical’ bits and Jimmy Blaze’s antics, its been pretty dry. We have sat back and let team yellow blow the weight issue way out of proportion to the point they have managed to eclipse many of their own shortcomings, sigh…

And so here we are, a bunch of regular guys who love motors, tracks and wheels looking to break the mold and shift gears uphill into who knows what. The results will have to speak for themselves and with any luck I can revisit this post sometime in the future and say ’see, we did it!’

On day 2 we divided up into smaller groups with Todd, Andrew, Jon and I focused on the future product plan and Tim, Bryan. Eric and Wade drilling into the marketing. As all good meetings do we ended up in a favorite local watering hole for supper and exchanged some lies. I mentioned  the SX Viper story that I still need to post on the blog and Todd was able to refresh my memory on several points which led us back to Paxson Alaska and the guest who thought his girl friend was hold up with one of our test pilots. The poor engineer awoke to a screaming two-stroke engine as the guest chain sawed the door open, looking for his girl. Good thing she wasn’t in there (gotta love Alaska). That was the same year that practically the whole crew was food poisoned  and one guy got lost in a whiteout on Summit Lake nearly perishing in the storm…

Conversation moved back to our favorite brews and I mentioned my fave Wisconsin bevy Leinenkugels. Well Todd in his infinite carbonated wisdom was quick to point out the hier of this 140 year old brewery rides, you guessed it, a Yamaha Apex. Turns out they spent a blurry evening exploring some awesome joint marketing ideas but Todd can’t remember any…

We saw the the boys off to the airport last Friday and have made the commitment to hold regular update vid-con meetings and my email folder is already swollen with American influence. Let me know if you are interested in our progress or if you would like to have any of the US guys make a guest post here on SledTalk. I made them the offer but as you may have surmised they are a little shy!

cheers cr

First, no worries, we are still in business. The total snowmobile industry has taken another hit in the USA with sales down about 20% over the previous year. In Canada we fared better on par (no change) over the previous year. The market share inside of the totals moved around quite a bit mostly due to non-current liquidation and individual OE programs. In the US a lot of focus was on moving non-current models. Yamaha started the season in pretty good shape compared to some others but we still felt the impact of the economic crisis. So far this year it appears the ’spring order’ has softened with more people opting to sit on their wallets until the fall to decide on whether to pop for a new sled, which really comes as no surprise.

It is interesting to note that Canada and the USA are now within about 10,000 unit sales of each other (approximately 10% of total North American sales. ) To put that in persepective it was not long ago at all, when the USA accounted for more than double  Canada’s  sales. So it is no surprise that Polaris and Cat, along with Yamaha are looking much closer at the Canadian market than they ever have in the past.  Skidoo, being a Canadian company, has always been in tune with this market and has put significant effort and resources (with the occasional help of our government) into building more touring, trail and utility variations to cover our more diverse needs.

Our relationship with Yamaha USA has long been one of a ‘little brother’ partnership where we work closely with regards to our product planning ideas and willingly except the marketing direction and support that always came as a result of the well funded and managed planning and marketing team in the USA. Our factory has always listened to the total market but generally followed the direction put forth from the USA.

Now in light of the current situation, we find a lot of attention is being given to our market and our thoughts on how we should proceed as a company. We are engaged almost daily with our friends south of the border and are working hard to change things up and work much closer on the planning and execution of projects that have been done quite independently in the past. I am predicting that you will see a new Yamaha begin to emerge next season. One with a less traditional voice and a lean / mean and ‘connected’ approach to marketing.

I could go on about some of my own feelings and ideas but that would be somewhat premature at this point. Team USA will be in town next week and we will be ‘rolling up our sleeves’ to lay the foundation for our new joint strategy. You can rest assured Team Blue is not going to back off from the snowmobile business. I believe we need to exercise restraint with regards to pushing wholesale at our dealers and focus on improving our quality and reliability at every step. The seasons are getting too short to find yourself on the wrong end of a tow-rope, right? I’ll keep you posted.

Just for giggles, I mentioned in some recent posts how many of our old guard has taken retirement, most recently my friend Greg Marier. Greg sent me a picture this morning that made me stop and reflect about the years of past planning. Here we are seen in Japan back in the pre-trailing arm days… the back row says it all with (left to right) Greg, Jim, Tim, myself and Haga…  the planning foundation for USA / Canada and Europe for over 20 years. Like the people, the times have changed. We have some young guns at the helm now and new challenges to meet. That said, Yamaha is quite okay, damn straight… and thanks for asking!

cheers cr

The Yamaha official release came through as I was adding my pics. horseshoe-valley-resort-yamaha-factory-racing-press-release.

There was another tid-bit of information attached to the press release. My old friend Greg Marier has officially announced his retirement. Greg has been overseeing the factory snowcross team development for the past couple of seasons but more importantly has given many years of his life to Yamaha snowmobile planning and engineering. Greg has already forgotten more about snowmobiles than most of us will ever know.

Shifting gears, I spoke with Randy Swenson this morning and the Revelstoke Yamafest went off without a hitch. He reported about 300 blue sleds on the hill, close to 150 demo rides on the new Air Nytro mountain and a good time was had by all. He sounded a little rough so I asked him if all was well… turns out he was bitten by his big turbo after he tried to park on a  rock outcrop on the edge of a vertical chute during a slight detour on the way up… A little banged up and some wrenching ahead of him but they plan to have the cameras rolling on another first ascent attempt later this week.

Finally the OFSC has announced our provincial trail system is officially shut down for the season. This is for your safety… heres the scoop trailclosuremr

cheers cr

Well he had the call last week from the officials after receiving pictures of the sled and details of Gilles world record run in Val D’or, seems they have fast tracked the entry and welcomed Gilles to run this September. There are some concerns regarding the small wheels under the skis causing some unusual ruts in the salt that might affect other vehicles so Gilles may be asked to run at least one test session if required. Pressure is now on as the team thought they had 18 months to prepare, this is now changed to 6. I’ll keep you posted as the worlds fastest snowmobile gets ready to take on the salt…

Left Gilles, center Richard, right Bob

Gilles recently hooked up with another Yamaha world record holder, Bob ‘HONDO’ Davis. Bob achieved his record from Guinness for the ‘most miles in 60 days’ on board his Yamaha RS Venture. The cool thing is the Venture had well over 30,000km before setting out and is currently kissing 60,000km on the odometer, aside from oil changes and a valve adjustment the engine is completely original having never been apart. You can get caught up with all of Bobs adventures on Totallyamaha.

Here is a picture that features Bob and Gilles together with PASSIONYAMAHA’s Richard Hotte. Richard was instrumental in getting the ‘worlds fastest’ together the the ‘worlds most reliable’ for an official introduction and photo session.

Out west another fast guy left his mark on Revelstoke’s Boulder Mountain. Our own Randy Swenson took on all comers at the annual Big Iron Shoot-out and ended up ‘top dog’ in this colorful outlaw event. Turns out his propane powered and boosted Nytro spoiled the day for some fast-talkin, turbo-charged mustard-tubs… ata boy Randy!

In other racing news the factory racing snocross team is finishing up the season in strong fashion. I am looking forward to watching Iain hit the slopes at Horseshoe for the CSRA finals… heres the latest release.  round-7-isoc

And overseas our old pal Yuji Nakazawa has locked down the Japan SX championship, heres a few pics from ‘Ace’ Oyama our newest member of the snowmobile development team, (pardon the ‘Jenglish but you’ll get the picture

  ) mfj-all-japan-sno-x-rd5

In closing, the Toronto Supercross was a blast on Saturday, this shot kinda sums it up. Cheers  cr

.

As I was spending some time on the admin side trying to figure out what happened, I ran across some interesting stats.

Sled Talk has  passed the two year mark entering number three. I have written and posted 112 articles and received 1110 comments, most of which I have responded to and much of that during my spare time. The good news is, I still have a wife and the dog doesn’t try to bite me when I enter my own house!

If you were hoping to see the factory snocross team in action this weekend in Chickopee (Kitchener ON), the event has been canceled, however the boys are still planning to hit Horseshoe for the CSRA final in a couple of weeks. As for me, I’m going to hit the AMA Supercross in Toronto this  Saturday to witness Bubba and Josh pull off a 1-2 finish!

On the product side, factory has listened to your feedback and I am happy to say it appears that all the 2010 Apex models will be coming with a new fully open / fully clipped, 2-ply Ripsaw track with EXTROVERT drivers and the new MONOSHOCK 2 skid frame. This will certainly enhance suspension durability, performance and hyfax longevity…

I’ll be back early next week with a full update and some new stuff but I wanted to get in a quick post today to let you know the blog is still alive. Now I’m outa here, and thanks to all of you, we have a belated birthday to celebrate tonight…here’s to year 3!

cheers  cr