meal stops?
It can be many hundreds of
kilometres between services such as
restaurants and lodgings.
3. Did you pack a basic tool-kit
that will allow you to perform the
most common of trailside repairs?
While flats and the need to fix a
tube or plug a tire are not a concern
while snowmobiling, there are a cou-
ple of things that can and do happen
on a semi-regular basis that have the
potential to bring your adventure to
a fast halt. The first is a broken belt.
Just like the chain (or shaft drive) on
your adventure bike, a snowmobile
uses a belt to transfer energy from
the primary to the driven clutch, and
these belts wear out. There is usually
very little warning before a belt lets
go, and when it does there is nothing
that will get you going again except
for a new belt, so always keep one on
your machine. Also, if you are riding
a 2-stroke machine you will need to
make sure that you have enough oil
for the ride. My machine gets about
1000 kilometres to a full oil tank, so if
I know that I will be travelling fur-
ther than that I need to bring oil with
me. My most recent trip to Northern
Ontario required that I pack and addi-
tional 3 litres of oil and I also had to
TRAVERSE 105
purchase a 4 litre jug to complete the
2,500 kilometres that we covered.
4. Have you planned ahead for
lodgings?
For most of us who enjoy long dis-
tance travel by snowmobile, camp-
ing is definitely NOT what we look
forward to at the end of a long days
ride. It is simply not practical to pack
camping gear onto most sleds, and
also after several hours of riding in
temperatures as low as -35c a hot bath
or shower is definitely welcomed!
Therefore it is wise to call ahead and
make reservations in the next town or
city that you are riding through.