Right away, the ride quality was noticeably different. At cruising speed, the shocks took the nose-to-tail pitch and yaw out of the sled. Everything seemed to flatten out and chassis movement was reduced.
Hitting the mogul trails at speed showed more improvements. The sled maintained a straight line better with far less rear-end deflection off hard hits, especially on a long line of repeated bumps where stock shocks tend to heat up. The Raptor’s performance didn’t change from the first minute of the ride to the last.
The sled’s weight transfer and how the track was able to work in the snow seemed to get better as well. For our snow in the Idaho/Wyoming region, we prefer the Series 6 2.6-inch RMK track over the Series 7 3.0-inch track simple because it walks up on top of the snow better. The Raptor shocks improved that characteristic. The track seemed to get on snow better than before. The way Entz has these shocks valved allows the front rail shock to collapse under acceleration so that the rail is letting the track climb as opposed to pushing the rail down, forcing it to trench. These shocks are actually pretty incredible.
The guys with the big Instagram accounts make it look like they’re in chest-deep powder 100 feet from their trailer ramp. But the reality is, mountain sledders are some of the best trail racers in the world. We all have stretches of rough trails we have to ride to get to our zones. Nobody wants to compromise deep snow ability to make the sled more comfortable on the trail. At the same time, nobody wants to ride a sled with the suspension compliance of a horse-drawn wagon down the trail, either. Raptor’s Kinetic shocks give you the upgrade to a “best of both worlds” suspension. You get the best possible rough-trail ride while actually improving deep snow performance.
www.raptorshocks.com
www.mountainskillz.com
Front end: $1,500
Rear end: $1,090