Oyvind Ryeng
New member
As it turns out, my younger brother suddenly became the owner of a late nineties Arctic Cat ZR600, and we took it out to our grandmothers place for a little spin yesterday. Our grandmothers place is in the northern Norway near 68° Northern lattitude. The ZR600 features a liquid cooled twin producing somewhere around 100 HP with a 121" by 15" by 1.25" track. Our day out was a perfect one with temperatures in the +6°C range in the low lands and very little, if any wind. The bottom layer of the snow was semi-hard packed with 10-20 cm of powder on top. If I count the one time i rode my friends 1996 Polaris XCR600 /w an Ultra 700 engine for about two minutes, this is only my second time out on a sled this season. Now unfortunately my brothers little Arctic Cat was not feeling too good; the throttle would sometimes stick, it would often bog down at low speeds and under high load and the clutches would sometimes not disengage when coming to a stop, causing the machine to stall out. However, when it got up to speed and the RPM's rose into it's sweet spot it would pull and pull with all it's might causing large volumes of adrenaline and dopamine to flow throughout my veins, wich in turn led to a complete state of total euphoria on my part. The last time I had such fun on a sled was back in 1999 (!) on one of my friends' stock Mountain SRX.
My brother and I climbed to the very peak of the mountain called "Fugltind" ("Bird Peak") or "Middagstind" ("Dinner Peak") wich is overlooking the little town of Storsteinnes where our grandmother lives. Total elevation at the peak is 1033 metres, or ~3400 feet. My brother drove down in the flatlands all the way to the foot of the mountain and then passed the torch to me, the more experienced rider, when it came to actually conquering the 30-40° inclines towards the peak of the mountain. The engine, when running flat-out at wide open throttle up those steep hills would rip the track with great force straight through the loose stuff on top, digging into the traction goldmine of more densely packed snow below. The hills were full of small, wind-generated bumps, and since we both were on the sled the skis were hardly in contact even once with the snow on the hillclimb. We were lucky enough to not run into the cops this time around; from us Norwegian guys you all know the retarded laws we have to put up with - getting caught on a sled in the middle of nowhere where one does no harm to anyone qualifies you for a USD $1300 fine and most likely a revoked (car!) licence. The fine is also doubled if you try to outrun the coppers and they might throw in a little bonus fine for reckless driving if they feel like it. We also stopped and chatted with skiers and a couple of other sledders wich we also ran into this time around. All in all, a great day out.
I'm actually the lucky owner of a Olympus E-500 dSLR, but I didn't have the guts to bring it with me, so the following pictures were taken on my Sony Ericsson K610i cell phone, thereby the excessive noise and lack of microcontrast and texture:
My brother and I climbed to the very peak of the mountain called "Fugltind" ("Bird Peak") or "Middagstind" ("Dinner Peak") wich is overlooking the little town of Storsteinnes where our grandmother lives. Total elevation at the peak is 1033 metres, or ~3400 feet. My brother drove down in the flatlands all the way to the foot of the mountain and then passed the torch to me, the more experienced rider, when it came to actually conquering the 30-40° inclines towards the peak of the mountain. The engine, when running flat-out at wide open throttle up those steep hills would rip the track with great force straight through the loose stuff on top, digging into the traction goldmine of more densely packed snow below. The hills were full of small, wind-generated bumps, and since we both were on the sled the skis were hardly in contact even once with the snow on the hillclimb. We were lucky enough to not run into the cops this time around; from us Norwegian guys you all know the retarded laws we have to put up with - getting caught on a sled in the middle of nowhere where one does no harm to anyone qualifies you for a USD $1300 fine and most likely a revoked (car!) licence. The fine is also doubled if you try to outrun the coppers and they might throw in a little bonus fine for reckless driving if they feel like it. We also stopped and chatted with skiers and a couple of other sledders wich we also ran into this time around. All in all, a great day out.
I'm actually the lucky owner of a Olympus E-500 dSLR, but I didn't have the guts to bring it with me, so the following pictures were taken on my Sony Ericsson K610i cell phone, thereby the excessive noise and lack of microcontrast and texture:
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yamaholic22
Active member
Sounds like a good time. Sorry about the green one though...lol
Junior
New member
ya norwegian laws regarding anything with an engine are totally ridiculous. Sounds like a good ride tho.
92vwgti
New member
awesome pics
so you guys are allowed to have sleds but your not allowed using them in public?
so you guys are allowed to have sleds but your not allowed using them in public?
Oyvind Ryeng
New member
Yeah, something like that.
In my state or "fylke", the second northmost one, legal trails are far in between, and some of them are stumps only a few kilometers long and not interconnected with any longer trails. What's worse, you are not allowed to ride anywhere but on the trail or just a few metres outside of it; the only exeption is when you are stopping to set up camp - it has to be less than 300 metres from the trail and you are NOT allowed to ride anywhere else but back to the trail again. If I didn't have lots of other hobbies or a sound mind I'd probably either hang myself, stop sledding alltogether or be fined and persecuted until my only posession would be the cardboard box I'd be living in at that point. I find it hilarious that most folk *in all of the land* have already come to terms with the fact that sledding is practically concidered a crime - if you've ever imagined the French to be spineless, you haven't seen nothing yet (actually, we could learn alot from their rioting). Most of my friends and aquaintances will at this point just throw their sleds on the trailer and drive all the way to SWEDEN or FINLAND (6 hours+) just to be able to do some sledding without having the cops reaching into your wallet every five minutes.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, my American and Canadian friends: Fight the machine! Don't give up an inch of the civil liberties your forefathers died to protect! Sometimes I dream about having a couple of your Raptors, Tomcats and B2s "free the shit out of us", but that's a long shot seeing as how were locked into the same NATO agreement.
In my state or "fylke", the second northmost one, legal trails are far in between, and some of them are stumps only a few kilometers long and not interconnected with any longer trails. What's worse, you are not allowed to ride anywhere but on the trail or just a few metres outside of it; the only exeption is when you are stopping to set up camp - it has to be less than 300 metres from the trail and you are NOT allowed to ride anywhere else but back to the trail again. If I didn't have lots of other hobbies or a sound mind I'd probably either hang myself, stop sledding alltogether or be fined and persecuted until my only posession would be the cardboard box I'd be living in at that point. I find it hilarious that most folk *in all of the land* have already come to terms with the fact that sledding is practically concidered a crime - if you've ever imagined the French to be spineless, you haven't seen nothing yet (actually, we could learn alot from their rioting). Most of my friends and aquaintances will at this point just throw their sleds on the trailer and drive all the way to SWEDEN or FINLAND (6 hours+) just to be able to do some sledding without having the cops reaching into your wallet every five minutes.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, my American and Canadian friends: Fight the machine! Don't give up an inch of the civil liberties your forefathers died to protect! Sometimes I dream about having a couple of your Raptors, Tomcats and B2s "free the shit out of us", but that's a long shot seeing as how were locked into the same NATO agreement.
Junior
New member
Ya, my license would not last long in Norway at all.
issue is that you guys have so many political parties that it's difficult to get one in that'll actually help you guys out. That's what you gotta do tho, hassle your MP about it, ALOT, and get your friends to do that same.
That's how it got so messed up, a buncha people hassling them that sleds are too loud and smell bad. Explain to the politicians that they're not that loud anymore, they don't smell as bad anymore, and that you feel oppressed over having a hobby. Be sure to use to word oppressed, politicians love that.
issue is that you guys have so many political parties that it's difficult to get one in that'll actually help you guys out. That's what you gotta do tho, hassle your MP about it, ALOT, and get your friends to do that same.
That's how it got so messed up, a buncha people hassling them that sleds are too loud and smell bad. Explain to the politicians that they're not that loud anymore, they don't smell as bad anymore, and that you feel oppressed over having a hobby. Be sure to use to word oppressed, politicians love that.
92vwgti
New member
wow makes us realize how much freedom we have here in canada/usa. the only time the cops will chase me out here is if im on private property or on trails that go by residential places late at night,
keep fighting it man
keep fighting it man