average age

[predatorr03]

I'm suprised to see that most riders are above 30 years old and even 40. All along i thought this would be a younger ladd sport.I guess riding couches is for when you hit the 60's or 70's and hawkers like to stay young at heart.Hell,i know i'm still a kid in my mind

 

[Thunderhawk]

I find it odd that the youngsters aren't the ones embracing this sport. It's completely different than when a new skiingg idea came along and the snowboards were embraced by kids rather than adults.

45 here and always up for a new challenge. I would expect to follow in Bud's footsteps and ride into my 70's.

 

[TCSKIBIKE]

I believe it takes a certain amount of Cycling maturity to understand the benefits of this machine.

Who here rides quads in the summer........Not I .

 

[TLKDPROD]

I gotta say the money has kept me away from the sport for 4 years before buying my first 503. I don't only mean buying the machine only but then you need a rig to carry it, gas in car & Hawk... plus all the equipment, 1000$ of spare dollars in your account just in case something breaks... Ideally a garage to work on it... Tell me a 15-17 year old can afford that... Unless daddy is there to take the Credit card out when needed.. Don't get me wrong here, I wish my father did that... !!! Plus you can be sure that none of their friends have the same hobby, which might also screw up the scale. Plus it's a winter thing you can only do 3 real months a year... If all you budget goes in there, what do you do the other 9...

Instead the kids probably ride skateboard, for 170$ you get a complete skateboard and you can do 1/2 of the summer then they buy a 2nd cheap deck for 45.99$ for the rest of the summer and hold on to their noisy bearings. With 170$ when you go Snow-Hawking, you basically cover the cost of one day of riding with a hotel room shared between 2 guys... That's if you don't blow a 100$ belt or a 220$ cog belt during the day...

My thoughts, no question why no kids are riding sleds/hawks. Lot of kid I meet are all a lot more open minded to the snow-hawk idea than all-time sledders...

 

[TLKDPROD]

... and hawkers like to stay young at heart.Hell,i know i'm still a kid in my mind...

So far from what I've seen at the 3 Hawkfest I've been to, we're just a bunch of 12 to 16 year old kids playing in the snow with our favorite toys, whatever our faces (wrinkled or not) says, all of us were !

I can't remember which Hawker said that last year at his 36th birthday but it went as something like that : "well, next week-end will be the 20th birthday of my 16 years old" ...

 

[Thunderhawk]

Counterpoint -

You see the families out there and they are on 4 or 5 sleds. It might not have happened for you or me, but some parents buy their kids a new $5-$10K sled every couple of years. Why didn't they ask for a hawk rather than a sled?

The kid grows up a bit and is in his 20's working full time. He goes to purchase a machine with his own money for the first time in his life. Does he buy a sled or a hawk?

The snowmobile industry sells 10,000 new sleds a year or more in the U.S. alone, but probably only 10-15 new hawks were sold last year, and each of those sold for way below dealer cost.

I find it strange that everyone wants to look and talk about the hawk when they see it, but no follow through to say,

Do they rent those somewhere?
Could I try it?

Even if you offer it to someone, they won't try it.

 

[Beeline]

The sport is catching on. I doubt it will ever be mainstream. But if the Stradaline or something close comes into existence, people will follow. Tony in Seattle told me that after a couple of Hawks were out, others started to buy in to the idea. I think theres about 37 up there.

 

[buffaloHAWK]

here are some fun facts...in 2009 there were 147,066 snowmobiles sold worldwide. 61,593 in usa and 49,510 in canada, sled sales peaked in 1997 at 170,325. 1.65 million reigstered sleds in usa and 765,275 in canada, 136,471 in NY. average age of a snowmobiler is 43!
snowmobiling also provides physical and mental health benifits! average person burns 238 calories per hour...

how many hawks have been sold total is the question???

 

[predatorr03]

how many an hour on a hawk

Then we should burn at least double the calories per hour riding a hawk,cause it just burns me out and i'm no slouch.I work construction all day and i'm not half as tired then when i ride the hawk a couple of hours.But the hawk hasn't won just yet.The weekend is coming so that meens another ride for at least 4 hours this time

 

[snowhawkaddict]

It's all in the mind!

Hard to change those hardened Twoskis, it's taken them the better of a decade to become the riders they are. Those who watched 12year old Austin at Hawk Fest last year had to be amazed, if a child can take these where a veteran snowmobiler thinks twice then it's one BAMF!

 

[buffaloHAWK]

maybe beeline can make up some BAMF decals for us?!

 

[Beeline]

I'm type illiterate. Whats BAMF

 

[Beeline]

Buffalo Action Mighty Fast. JK. I duno.

 

[buffaloHAWK]

thats funny bee! im gonna rename my hawk!

 

[MIKE460]

I was 16 when I started riding a hawk. But that was only because I found it accidentally. My father had grown up racing enduros and got me into racing when I was 8. So having the bikes in the summer we needed something to do in the winter and that's how we started with the snowmobiles. We actually found the hawk on the way up to Maine for a snowmobiling trip at a random place we had stopped at to get oil. After a few years I bought it off my father becaue I rode it more than he did. But still everywhere I go people come up and ask me what it is. I think there would be more hawk riders in general if there were more hawks out there for people to see. But hawks seem to attract more people that are new to snowmobiling with some sort of motorcycle background than current snowmobilers.

 

[SnowDunes]

But hawks seem to attract more people that are new to snowmobiling with some sort of motorcycle background than current snowmobilers.

Bingo!

from this 45 year old fart!

 

[HellSpawn]

Just a 44 yo beginer on a Hawk here,

 

[600 HO St_ours]

39 here, had some regular 2 skis in the past but I just hated the way they cornered much like a 3 wheeled atv...

I have a sport and offroad bike background so to me the Hawk seemed like a logical solution and so far has not disapointed.

Frank

 

[snowhawkaddict]

I wish Bud would chime in, mid to late sixties and an ex dirt bike hillclimber, still has his Suzuki RM465.................And nine Snow Hawks!

 

[buffaloHAWK]

i heard hes down to 8 1/2 hawks