Huggy controls our fleet of demo sleds which he signs out to magazine and TV types as well as other ‘expert’ evaluators. Some of those who grease him up with offers of ‘great product exposure’ get to ride the wheels off our sleds, (free of charge ) often returning them, dirty,  abused and out of fuel. Trying to find a thumb-nail image of the sled somewhere in print or a few kind words, often proves futile. Trust me when I say, at times we really question why we do it.

Well one of those is sitting out in our barn with 18,000 hard km on it. It started life as a long term test sled for the well known Quebec online rag Sledmagazine after that it fell into our general loan pool where it’s life became miserable. The once sweet blue Vector LTX pre-pro is now dirty, lonely and in need of some good lovin’. Did I mentions this sled already has 18, count’em, 18 thousand clicks on it. We didn’t want to see it end there, so you’re going to see just how many we can get out of it!… here’s the deal:

Instead of writing it off, we’re going to run it through our service shop for a complete massage and spa treatment. ed. we will not be touching the engine except for an oil change and filter. After it’s revitalization we are going to rack up as many more miles as possible during the coming season.

I’m going to have some of our new accessories bolted on, like the TRIC scratchers, Snow Trackers, maybe an Ice Ripper track (you get the idea) the only problem is Mr Yamaha doesn’t think it would be a good idea to turn me, Jon (and certainly not Huggy) loose to ride all season in the quest of high mileage. Something about our productivity and ROI.

Instead, we are going to insure and permit the unit for operation on OFSC trails and offer it up to anyone to ride, provided they are responsible (explains why Huggy will be holding down his desk), take care of it and ride lots (oh yeah, you’ll have to sign the waiver). In essence it is a free loaner sled for the season.

Now having said that you are probably thinking OK whats the catch; I already have an Apex / Nytro… whatever. No problem, I figure you probably know someone who doesn’t! Perhaps someone who is still rockin’ the old school on a ticking stinker. Maybe your stubborn, brand blind bud who’s sled has a history of gripping pistons during you’re seasonal, week long epic tour up north, oops wait a minute, that would be my buddy, anyway… We’re open to any wimpy sob story as to who and why someone might wanna have a free sled for part of the season.

I’m still getting my head around how we can manage this deal and get some decent feedback from the test riders but here’s what I’m thinking: We don’t want to incur a lot of shipping costs so we’ll keep it in Ontario for starters. If someone is planning a trip to say, Quebec and wants to drag the blue blog sled along with them, cool, just bring it back in one piece with lots of miles on it. We can also enlist our dealers to help for example; you could drop it off in New Liskeard with the excellent folks at Ag’Nor where someone up there could grab it and keep the crank spinning.

I’m hoping we get a few experienced riders writing in and we’ll put it to a vote as to who should get the blue blog sled next. So what’s in it for us? We’ll require the pilots to submit an honest report of what they thought of the sled, the bolt-on accessories and let us know about the trail conditions with any local knowledge gained. Of course any amusing tales of what happens during the ride  will be welcomed and shared amongst the crew, heck I might even post it here on Sled Talk if it doesn’t land me up in the dog house. We have several options open for sharing the adventure including our Twitter account, the Yamaha ‘in-your-facebook’ page and Sled Talk.

There you have it, time for all those who hang out here but never comment to weigh-in. Do you know somebody that wants to ride the blue blog sled? Spin us a good reason why we should give it up to them. Is it you? Remember, we want lots of miles on this sled. How about it? Got any thoughts or suggestions? Got any snow in Hornepayne yet? The blue blog sled beckons…

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