Welcome to Paul and Helen Rimmer's ATVing Website

UPDATE: Summer of 2003 I built the ATV Frontier website. I was just getting going on this page and decided to go much bigger. I'd been visiting the old ezboard forum atvfrontier site and really enjoyed the people there but found the site lacking. The owners asked me if I'd be interested in totally re-doing it and the rest is history. Check it out:



We got bit by the ATV bug in 2002. Every year Paul goes out to Dutch Creek, Alberta with the guys for an early summer/late spring blowing off steam camping party. Everyone takes a motorized vehicle (ATV's and bikes) and we go tearing around the local trails. I had a blast on a Honda Foreman 400 I rented from Calgary.


Later that summer I took Helen out to McGilvary Creek, Crowsnest Pass with a couple of Honda Foreman's to see if she'd enjoy it. She was a bit apprehensive at first but the more we did, the more comfortable she became. After an amazing 70km trail ride on our last day she was having no trouble keeping up and was looking for water (or preferably mud) to go through.

Places We've ATV'd

	Dutch Creek The last Dutch creek was a snowfest. First couple of days were great but then the clouds rolled in and we woke up on the Saturday to snow everywhere.
	Magilvary Creek There are some amazing trails around the Crowsnest mountain area. We used Magilvary creek as our base camp for a weekend of trail riding. Unfortunately Marty broke his foot on his death bike, but we still managed to have a good time.
	Indian Graves Considering this area is only an hour from our front door, there sure is some amazing quadding to be done here. From creek crossings, to good mud, to mountaintops with panoramic views. For the extra 15 minutes vs Maclean Creek I think this has to be our favourite "nearby" location.

Buying Our Own Quads

So far all of the quadding we've done has been on rentals. This gets expensive after a while. We've decided that we enjoy it so much we're going to buy our own quads. Here's some of the things we decided are requirements:

Selectable 2/4 wheel drive
Actual (or as close to real as possible) 4 wheel drive (not 3 WD as on some)
Good engine braking for the steep mountain trails
High ground clearance
Light weight so Helen and I can get it out of trouble
Enough power for the mountains
IRS for the comfort on long rides

This narrows the field down quite a bit. The ATV that matches up closest right now is the Bombardier Outlander. The one thing going against this quad is that it is brand new and doesn't have any long use reviews. We'll be buying this spring so we'll have to see how things unfold.

Outlander 400 HO XT This is a brand new quad in Bombardier's lineup. It has the new switchable 2/4WD and IRS rear suspension. Initial reviews sound good. Unfortunately they aren't available at dealers yet (19/5/03), hopefully soon.

UPDATE: We bought 2, 2004 Outlander XT's and have thoroughly enjoyed them. Check out lots of new pics here.

Accessories on our Quads

Here's some of the things you'll find attached to our ATVs or ourselves when we go quadding.

	For christmas this year, Helen bought me a rear ATV toolbox by Tamarack (in black). We know some people that own and recommend these and they do a good job of storing a lot of stuff in a light package and if installed correctly, keep things dry. Now I just need an ATV to put under it :-) .
	We bought a GPS so we can record the trails that we ride as well as find our way back to camp. I have to buy a mount to attach it to the ATV. The GPS used in conjunction with a computer, OziExplorer and some quality 1:50000 contour maps gives you a kick ass setup. Ozi communicates with the GPS to show your current position on high quality maps or to download tracks info from the Garmin and display it on the map. We use it on the highway in the truck with the laptop to see exactly where we are and to see exactly how far and what our ETA is to the next major route point.
	We bought 2 FRS Radios so that we can stay in touch on the trails. If you live in the states you can get these at WalMart at ~$40 US for a pair. They sell them up in Canada at various places (Crappy Tire for ~$60 Cdn. each), but I was able to get them new off e-bay for cheaper. See the item below that lets you control these radios without taking your helmet off.
	Picked up a pair of these Motocomm units from Radio World in Toronto, model number RFL-MC551 for $89 Canadian each. They were a breeze to install in our helments and seem to be well made. Will report more after some trail use. From the literature: The Rider-To-Radio Interface plugs into the speaker and microphone accessory jack(s) of a handheld two-way radio. Common types of handheld two-way radios are FRS (family radio), CB (citizen band), GMRS, MURS, and amateur. For a list of compatible two-way radios see the Compatibility Chart. The MC Series Rider-To-Radio Interface's helmet headset and handlebar push-to-talk (PTT) switch are remote extensions of the handheld two-way radio's own speaker, microphone and PTT. Simply, install the speakers and microphone in your helmet, strap the PTT switch to the handlebar grip, plug it into your handheld two-way radio and you are ready to communicate.

Hauling and Storing the ATVs

There's more to owning ATV's than just buying them and riding on the trails. Where are you going to keep them? How are you going to move them around? We live in Calgary on a suburban sized lot that doesn't have oodles of storage space. Some storage requirements we had were:

Our vehicles must be able to stay in the garage as we hate scraping windshields in the winter.
Ideally everything fits in the garage for the added security.
We don't want to be constantly moving stuff around to access/use stuff.

This basically eliminated the trailer from the running as we don't have anywhere to keep it unless one of the vehicles stayed on the driveway. After surfing for a while I came across some products that allowed ATV's to be hauled on top of the truck bed, called ATV decks. The first one we came across was the Ultimate Rack. These are well built units from Utah. I was originally going to purchase one of these until I found out how much it costs to ship something like this. The people there were a great help and if I lived closer I would have bought one for ~$1700 Canadian, NOT including shipping. Finally we came across the ATV decks from Marathon Marine. They had the added benefit of having retractable sides. This meant that the ATV deck could stay on the truck when it went in the garage because the side of the deck can retract to the width of the truck box. This was a bonus as we would have had to remove the other non-retracting decks from the truck when storing it in the garage. The Marathon deck was purchased from and installed by Raven truck accessories here in Calgary. I'd buy products from them again but never have them do any work as I feel they ripped me off on the installation costs including a $189 sheet of plywood!! Installation requires drilling 4 holes through your truck bed. These are used by 4 massive carriage bolts and wing nuts to allow easy removal of the deck. I am extremely happy with the finished product but I'd better be considering that the unit cost $2800 Cdn. ($2300 base plus $500 for retractable option).

Here's a pic of the super short ATV deck before installation, its the one on top.

For the hauler, we had another set of requirements:

It has to fit in our garage.
Four wheel drive so we can get to the more remote trailheads and deal with the June blizzards in the mountains.
Quad cab for lots of space.
Must be reliable.
As economical as possible.
No shortage of power in case we ever buy a trailer.

The garage plus quad cab meant that we had to go with a short box. We have a walk in closet in the hallway that juts out into the garage. I was prepared to start notching that if necessary to provide more garage space. Everything else pointed towards a diesel truck. When you surf the net about diesel trucks it doesn't take long to figure out that most people think the Dodge Cummins trucks are the best. On that note we went to a local Dodge dealership and test drove a new 2003 2500 SLT with HO Cummins and 6 speed. It was love at first site/drive. Once we'd verified that the truck would fit in the garage with only a little closet massaging, we decided to go for it. With the 300lb ATV deck on the truck I noticed a decent increase in gas mileage due to the better aerodynamics. Here's some pics:

UPDATE 05/10/04: Spring 2004 we moved into a new house with a 3 car garage. This meant I now had lots of room. I traded the ATV deck for one of these:

Triton SL8 ATV trailer.

ATVing Links

Here's a few of our favourite ATV associated links:

ATV Frontier
ATV Connection forums and industry news
ATV Time
ATV Nation
Highlifter Forums
Bombardier ATVs

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