I have to admit that I have a great sled. While it's not the most kid friendly snowmobile it's an absolute blast to ride. 800 cc's of well tuned Liberty Power coupled to a 1.5 track has excellent floatation and acceleation. That said, the bigger track loves to go in straight lines, which lead to a foward push through the corners. If there was an area where I wanted to improve the handling of my sled, this was it.

Polaris has been shipping sleds with plastic skiis for quite a few years now, but not all plastic skiis are created equal. Knowing that Polaris doesn't ship the best skiis in the world I decided to start looking for a better alternative.

After some heavy searching I had narrowed my selection down to two very trusted brands, SLP Straight Line Tracking (SLT) (www.slp.cc) or Simmons Flexi-Skiis (www.flexi-ski.com). I have many friends that use both so I know that they are a both a good quality ski with great handling characteristics and durability.

After going back and forth on it I received an email with the clincher, SLP had some SLT skiis on sale. I called them to find out the details and it turns out they have a flew blemished skiis that they wanted to sell and they assured me that they would look and handle great and they were in the perfect color as well. Order 2.

Next decision was about carbides..the SLT skiis have 4 different carbides:

• steel bars
• 6" 90 degree carbides that use a funky keel blade for anti-darting
• 6" 90 degree full length carbides
• 6" 60 degree carbides
• 10" 60 degree racing carbides

Note: The SLT skiis need SLT carbides. The carbides hold the skii saddle and the skii together so you can't substitue other carbides.

After talking with SLP I decided to go with the carbides with the keel blades. More on this later.

The skiis showed up in a timely fashion and they were a breeze to put together. The stock skiis came off easily with one bolt and they the SLT's were on in minutes.

My first ride was in the powder snow after a fresh snowfall and the skiis handled great. They were easy to turn and the nose of the sled floated just right. A few days later I wasn't as impressed though. The fresh snow had been packed by the groomers and sleds and I found that the front end wasn't biting as much as I wanted. After playing with setup for a few rides I decided to call up SLP and see what they suggested. I orderd a set of 6" 90 degree carbides that didn't use the keel blade. Note that with the special design of these skiis you don't need to run as much carbide as you would on a stock skii.

The new carbides made an incrediable difference. Driving on a hardpack trail with a 1.5" track on hardpacked snow leaves marks like a rotatiller had just gone down the trail. You can imagine what kind of forward force that kind of track is applying to the skiis when you're in a corner. It doesn't suprise that the smaller carbides didn't turn as well as I wished. The larger carbides bite perfectly in the turns and they didn't introduce trail darting either.

All in all, a do over.

T.