Let me introduce you to a project that I have been working on for the past few years! From the time I saw the first snowbike I knew there was a lot to be done and the design really match the very tight terrain and dense forest that we have here in North Quebec Canada.
So a bit about me, I'm just 26 and I ride snowmobile since I can walk, over the years this sport became a passion. This project started when I was out of town for school, I first saw a picture of a PowerHouse custom propex chassis, this chassis just triggered something. I had a few years to think and draft many idea and concept on how I think something like this should be built and what it should look like. At the origin I wanted more of a lightweight machine more or less like the blast that we just saw last year. Over the years the project just merged to more of a snowbike since it matched more and more to all my expectation. So three years ago, I started working as a mechanical designer, got a house and then started gathering tools to build whatever project I wanted in the futur! As we are, I have around 1.5 years in building and drawing this thing. Sometime it is long to just get the tooling or get the skills to use them.
Finally I fixed some goals to make all of this quite challenging. Many told me that I was not realist and it would not work. But hey, I don't have much to lose here.... time, parts, material... Yes but at the end it would still works if I don't achieve all my goals.
Original goal was to be lighter than the donor bike, in this case a YZ 250 2013 2t that is rated at 227lbs from Yamaha I think. This one was the biggest one, other goals was to have a better weight distribution by being shorter over all, lower seat height since I'm not that tall and I want easy access to the bike and not have to climb that much on it when riding off trail.
Now here is the final product of all this time and effort. A machine that is built to do what I want to do with it, the way I want to! Yes it is probably not the best design for some utilisation, but this is not the point. I just wanted it optimal for what I do. All the main goal was achieved event the most challenging one being the overall weight!
As it sits right now, 99% done minus few panels to cover It up, I'm at 217lbs Dry weight! For me this is quite a achievement and I'm proud of it.
There is still a lot of little Idea that I want to add or modify but for now It is mostly ready for some testing and I need those test to answer some of the questions. Design and idea also need to be tuned before going further. When this thing will be dialled in I plan on building some fairing to close it up a bit, a few pounds in bodywork will save a lot more in snow accumulation.
All in all, I think this little writeup do a good job telling the story of this project and I hope it won't be the last one! I became a member on this forum quite long time ago mainly because there was some nice writeup like this that was very inspiring, so here is my contribution!
I post this in the Snowbike section, Yes I know there is a modified one, but I think it will have a lot more interest here.
Thanks everyone for reading, and thanks for all the good info your are putting in this forum!
So a bit about me, I'm just 26 and I ride snowmobile since I can walk, over the years this sport became a passion. This project started when I was out of town for school, I first saw a picture of a PowerHouse custom propex chassis, this chassis just triggered something. I had a few years to think and draft many idea and concept on how I think something like this should be built and what it should look like. At the origin I wanted more of a lightweight machine more or less like the blast that we just saw last year. Over the years the project just merged to more of a snowbike since it matched more and more to all my expectation. So three years ago, I started working as a mechanical designer, got a house and then started gathering tools to build whatever project I wanted in the futur! As we are, I have around 1.5 years in building and drawing this thing. Sometime it is long to just get the tooling or get the skills to use them.
Finally I fixed some goals to make all of this quite challenging. Many told me that I was not realist and it would not work. But hey, I don't have much to lose here.... time, parts, material... Yes but at the end it would still works if I don't achieve all my goals.
Original goal was to be lighter than the donor bike, in this case a YZ 250 2013 2t that is rated at 227lbs from Yamaha I think. This one was the biggest one, other goals was to have a better weight distribution by being shorter over all, lower seat height since I'm not that tall and I want easy access to the bike and not have to climb that much on it when riding off trail.
Now here is the final product of all this time and effort. A machine that is built to do what I want to do with it, the way I want to! Yes it is probably not the best design for some utilisation, but this is not the point. I just wanted it optimal for what I do. All the main goal was achieved event the most challenging one being the overall weight!
As it sits right now, 99% done minus few panels to cover It up, I'm at 217lbs Dry weight! For me this is quite a achievement and I'm proud of it.
There is still a lot of little Idea that I want to add or modify but for now It is mostly ready for some testing and I need those test to answer some of the questions. Design and idea also need to be tuned before going further. When this thing will be dialled in I plan on building some fairing to close it up a bit, a few pounds in bodywork will save a lot more in snow accumulation.
All in all, I think this little writeup do a good job telling the story of this project and I hope it won't be the last one! I became a member on this forum quite long time ago mainly because there was some nice writeup like this that was very inspiring, so here is my contribution!
I post this in the Snowbike section, Yes I know there is a modified one, but I think it will have a lot more interest here.
Thanks everyone for reading, and thanks for all the good info your are putting in this forum!
