[posterboy12]

Well I picked mine up tonight . I rode it around the dealership in the ditch and I rode it around our trails at home for about 10 minutes. Tomorrow after work we are going to our 1 mile personal MX track and I will be trying it out there. I will not be riding it to hard as it needs about 15 miles to break her in.

First impressions......WOW. I love it so far. We have about 40 acres and I went riding around on the trails that we have on our surrounding land. I was not on it very long but I did try some of the things that The reviews said it was not good at.

The bogging issue...well I am not sure what there issue was here or what they were comparing it to. I can literally put the 700xx in first gear and let out on the clutch and it will move along without applying any gas and it will not kill the motor. That would be a slow creep to me. If you do hit the gas..hang on as it is very snappy in first gear and will take some getting use to in the throttle (loved it). 2nd gear seamed about what I would use in the tight woods. Now depending on what you mean by tight woods and what I mean could be two different things. Think of a corner about a foot or two wider than your ATV and it turns about 90 degrees or maybe a little more. That is usually the average tight woods for us up here in MN. Well in second gear it worked flawless. In second I was going pretty fast into a corner in the woods and then I brought it down to a pretty slow speed to make it around the corner and then nailed the gas again. To me it seamed very effortless and smooth. If you wanted a crazy out of control wheelie out of the corner you could shift down to 1st. 2nd will also wheelie, just more controlled. I also pulled the clutch in and shifted into second gear and I let the clutch out without applying any gas and it did not kill the motor until there was not enough gas being applied by the idle speed. (witch actually took me about 5 feet or more at a troll).

Wow is it ever smooth. I cant wait to see how it handles the whoops on our track. Two of the salesman from our dealership took it out in the ditch for a little bit and commented the following. The one salesman was surprised. He was expecting to feel a heavier machine than the rapter 700R. He actually said that it felt lighter...he seamed kind of shocked.

 

[gus700]

Congratulations Posterboy. I'm glad for you and XX-rated......but I would be lieing tho......if I said that I would not have enjoyed rubbing the doctors face in it if Honda hadn't gotten the issues that the testers were having straightened out before its release. It sounds like this machine will up the anty for all the other manufactures......and you have to love that......it is all about the progression.

So needless to say you are love'n your new machine with its "MANLY manUAL" transmission :lol:!!!

 

[YSW_Racing]

awesome glad you like it dont listen to the vfarce guys they just mad they keep going farther to the back of the pack with their girly auto's.

and honda didnt fix anything before the release they are the same XX's that all the testers rode, dont be dumb gus.


cngrats on owning a aweosme machine posterboy.

 

[posterboy12]

Well I am back from my first Trail Ride with my 700xx.

Destination: Spider Lake OHV Trails Near Pine City Minnesota.

This is our Annual trip that we take every year. The Map on the MN DNR sight doesn't do it justice. There are tons of trails that are not posted on the maps. This is one of our favorite trail systems in MN. The trails are excellent for ATV and Motorcycle as we have a combination in our riding group. These trails can be very twisty with ravines and some tight trails just big enough to get the larger size ATVs through. It also is more of a sandy dirt than a dirt dirt in most areas and it drains well after large amounts of rain. There are usually allot of dips where the water can puddle.

I spent all day Thursday at home getting my 700xx ready for the trip. I put a trail Tech Vapor on it with there bar riser, a new Pro-taper KX-high Contour bars (black) and the PRM full chassis skid plate .190” thick.

We left Friday morning early and found out that the place we are going received 1.5” of rain on Thursday. The good news is no dust, but I did know that I was going to get wet (soaked) . We arrived around 4:00 pm that Friday night and unloaded the machines and got them ready to go out on a ride. It was only three of us at the time as the rest of the crew was either not there yet or already out in the woods riding. I rode behind my friend that was riding a Honda CR450R Dirt Bike. He is my friend that races the Suzuki 450 in the District 23 ATV Races. It was misting and sprinkling on and off and the trails where wet in most areas.

OK you understand the conditions for Friday and now for the report:

Where do I start??For a short preview all I have to say is that this thing rocks for a trail quad. I have never had so much fun on any other quad trail riding as I did with the 700xx. We put on around 130 miles and I did not even feel like I was out riding. I actually feel like I was less tired than I usually am from riding my Sportsman 800. I just have to say WWWoooooWWWWWWWWW. I love this machine. Power sliding on the trails was not a problem at all. Once I got the gearing down....awesome , smooth, and easy to control power. Very Comfortable. My Friend that races took it out for a spin and all he could say is...wow... that thing is made for the trails...

It took me a little bit to get use to the 700xx as I am use to riding the trails with my Sportsman 800 and letting the Engine breaking take care of the breaking for the corners and it has been to long since I have ridden the 400ex in the trails. On Friday I found myself using 2nd gear most of the time and shifting into third once in a while but I was feeling like I was revving it to high in Second and if I put it in third it would bog down to far for the corners. On the second day of riding (Saturday) I figured it out and found myself to really enjoy third gear and I stayed in third most of the time and shifted down to second for the sharp corners for only a little bit and then back into third as I was coming out of the corner. Saturday was a very nice sunny day in the 70's. Once you get use to third it is amazing and it became my favorite gear for trial riding. You can pull a wheelie in Third gear with just rolling on the throttle, but you need to be in the Third gear power band. I also found myself using fourth gear on the longer straights. Wow... This thing rips on the trails. Once in the groove we were averaging about 30-40 mph in the trails. We did hit about 49.5 mph according to my Vapor on one of the longer stretches, witch is pretty fast for tight trails. I loved the new handle bars and they made a huge difference in the handling. The suspension on this thing rocks for the trails, it would have still been nice to have ressies in the front to see what kind of difference it would make, but I had no complaints about the suspension. The ground clearance is awesome as I found myself thinking I was going to hit some pretty large rocks that I rode over and nothing ever happened. The only time I hit my Prm Skid plate was when I was landing on top of a rock after launching it off of a jump on the trail. I hit it pretty good that way a couple of times and all it did was put a scratch on my PRM Skid plate (glad I put that on). As for puddles.... well you will get wet if you are not going fast enough. If you are going fast enough you can just skip right over them and not get wet most of the time. I also did some slow tooling around 6 MPH and I had no issues at all. I lost one screw on the machine.... It is the middle screw that holds the RH Exhaust shield on... other than that no problems at all. I am so glad that I did not go with the Outlaw. The 700xx is definitely a keeper. Just waiting on the Nerf Bars to come out for my next add on. Oh, I almost forgot... I was thinking about getting a new bumper because I did not think the front bumper would hold up.... We had to go through a section of the trail that the loggers completely demolished and I did not make it through (over a 2 foot deep mud hole)....I almost did, but I had to let up because someone was in my way with a 4x4.... We hooked a tow strap to the front bumper and it is a lot stronger than you think.... No problems with it at all.

Also...I would have to say that this thing does not feel heavy at all and I am not comparing it to the Sportsman 800...I am comparing it to a Suzuki 450 and the old 400ex that I use to have. It never felt heavy to me.


Well I will not bore you any more. Let me know if you have any questions and I would be glad to answer them.

Thanks and Ride hard...and safe

 

[Admin]

Great report, sounds like you had a blast!

 

[MUDBUCKET]

Nice review and ride report, just came back from Spider Lake myself ,it is an excellent riding area.

 

[Rumpig700XX]

Yeah, sounds like a great area to ride.