Polaris axys vs. skidoo 850 backcountry sleds

I'll be excited to see these sled's in the snow. They should make for some fun sled's to ride.

The Ski-dizzle I am sure is going to be a nice sled. I love my axys though and am very familiar with the way the work and handle.

I think that the 850 will be a very good motor but these days manufacturers never release a motor without a plan "B". I don't mean that they have a plan if the motor fails but they will have a plan to keep that motor on the top of the pile for as long as they can. Do you really think the 850 will be tuned for max power on the first year? I bet it could have a big hp increase or even has room to bore it even bigger. What if Cat or Polaris releases a big motor that blows away the 850? Cat does have a history of wanting the bragging rights to the most powerful 2 stroke motor on the market. I bet the delay on the release of the C-Tec 2-800 is to send it back to the drawing board to release it as a 850-900. Polaris on the other hand has the history of making lighter lower powered motors and making up for it by focusing on power to weight ratio. I'm sure this approach does cost less in the long run and I am okay with it as long as it does not compromise reliability too much. At the end of the day it is all about confidence. Not just confidence that your sled won't blow up but more about confidence that your sled will take you where you want to go. I don't want to be on a tank that makes me nervous about dropping over off a cliff that takes 100% of my strength, skill and guts to climb back out of. Currently the Polaris gives me that confidence and not so much with the others.

NWaxys said:

My 850 165 gets here in October... Gunna add some exit shocks, clutching from speed shop Inc, tki belt drive and possibly silber turbo, with a new set of bars and lower riser. My axys is on silber boost, clutched, bars, full exit shocks and springs, bm fab le boards. Should make for a good side by side comparison on these two sleds. Can't wait to put them to the test

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Good choice on the shocks and TKI drive (quality!). The one solid thing I can say about the 850, is that the demo had good power. I personally wouldn't do a turbo w/o riding it around. I think the handling is improved over the XM 800 but it is still the same rider (way) forward handling. Jealous you get to do all those mods to two sleds!