Every year, we get letters or emails from readers who say something like this:
“Why do you guys spend so much time writing about new sleds – nobody’s really that interested in new sleds, we want to read about repairs we can make to our 10-year-old sleds to make them last longer.”
The point that we should never forget about how-to stories, technical tips, riding destinations and other things that appeal to Joe Common Snowmobiler is well taken, and we’ll always include such information on our websites and magazine.
However, every time we do a reader survey for our magazine, new sled information and new sled reviews and shootouts always finish at the top of the list of things readers want to see in Snow Goer. And, looking back on our website statistics for snowgoer.com, it’s also the biggest draw to our website (other than our popular message boards, of course!).
The most viewed story on snowgoer.com in calendar year 2010? A feature on Ski-Doo’s 2011 snowmobiles (click on the title to link to the story). In second place? A feature on the 2011 Polaris Snowmobiles. And third? You guessed it, another feature on new snowmobiles – the 2011 Arctic Cat launch. Even if snowmobilers can’t always afford what’s new and exciting, they always want to read about it.
That said, the fastest growing segment of the snowmobile market in recent years has been interest in antique and vintage sleds. That’s reflected in our fourth most popular story for 2010 – Phil Mickelson’s lookback at historic Rotax snowmobile engines in his collection.
People love shootouts, and our shootout of the 2011 800-class two-strokes grabs fifth place in our website statistics.
Our sixth most popular feature on our website was not a story but a video – the first time a video has ranked this high for us. It was our video on the Yamaha Apex SE being named the 2011 Snowmobile Of The Year.
Seventh place was grabbed by a weighty story – specifically, our feature story on 2010 Snowmobile Sled Weights attracted a lot of attention on the website. It was followed in eight place on our story on the 2011 Yamaha snowmobiles.
Back to snowmobiling history, David Wells’ excellent feature on the Great Stock Class Racing Wars of the 1970s finished in ninth place. It was followed by a story on Ski-Doo’s 800 E-Tec.
So, enjoy riding this winter — and when you want to read about what’s new on the 2012 snowmobiles, check snowgoer.com first.
well, that’s a good way to put it, and what a year it has been..
rock on guys…