02/08/2026
A message from John LaCavera:
Reports are that lots and lots of riders are out and about, hopefully enjoying lots of miles and smiles!
Just a quick reminder, there are still lots of hazard spots out there, and while we do have a few miles of good to great trails, there are several spots that are severely in need of snow, trail work, or other potentially hazardous situations. As always, ride with care and caution, be smart, and ride to the right side of the trail, especially when you can’t see up over a rise in front of you or around every corner.
Feel free to remove any rocks, branches, or fodder that gets kicked up by spinning snowmobile tracks and the steel groomer drag. We try to remove that stuff as it gets kicked up, but sometimes there is a piece or two left, especially on the hills, which is the worst spot for a groomer to stop. We appreciate your assistance with that; thank you to riders out on the trail who have stopped and cleared cattails, twigs, branches, blowdowns, and hangers that slap you in the eyeball when your helmet shield is up.
There is still tons and tons and tons of that, especially in the wooded sections. Grab a pruner and bungee it to your machine somewhere or helmet, and when you stop for a break, snap off a few boughs or prune back some limbs that make you have to lean down to your handlebar when riding. And better yet, all the woody material you just cut, toss it into a wet spot or bad low area. That one thing alone can save the groomer guy potentially hours. How’s that, you ask? When water gets on an ice-cold metal drag, it instantly freezes to it, along with any available snow around it at the same time. That means by the time you go about 20 feet forward, you go from a 250-pound drag dry weight to a drag now almost immovable, filled with quick-freezing slush, coming in at a mere approximately 800 pounds or more. The only thing to do is unhook the implement and get standing straight up on the side. That is no easy task for sure, especially coming in at 250 pounds dry, spread out over 4’ x 8‘ of size. They say when there’s a will, there’s a way, so once this task is completed, a pry bar and hammer are taken out of the toolbox, and most likely, this is happening in the middle of the night when people are on their way to bed or already sleeping. Shots from a metal hammer to a cold, icy metal drag in the middle of a power line must be heard for miles and miles. Someone standing out on their deck could certainly hear it and wonder what is going on! Sorry, townsfolk.
Once all or most of the slushy ice and ice are removed from metal surfaces, the drag must remain standing tall for 10-20 minutes in order for the metal to get good and cold and frozen again before it gets plopped down into dry powder, which would defeat the purpose of just doing a total de-ice.
So, all that to say this: we see people out on the trail all the time. What can we do to help the club or trail? How do I join the club?
Yes, it is fantastic to join the club and come to the meetings. Most of us who come are pretty nice people!!
There is our monthly meeting coming up Tuesday evening at 6 pm. That’s when pretty much anything for the club gets talked about and decided upon, and thank you, everyone, who has paid their $25 to become a member; that does help. MSA does get $15 of that; the club keeps $10, so we’re not making a lot off of that for sure, especially when the club has a budget of around $2600 or so, just to pay insurance, CMP, and stuff like that, without buying equipment or anything extra.
The little ways you can help are probably the most important because of time, and all of our trail work is done by volunteers. So, when you’re out riding and do those simple little things, like pruning or filling in that little water hole so it doesn’t take the groomer guy 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour to get on his way again because of having to go through a little wet spot, which somebody riding by could quickly fix with a clip or a snap. Throw it in the hole, add a couple of foot swipes of snow, and go on your way, and you just solved an hour-long issue, and more actual grooming time can be spent.
On a side note:
It appears from our snowmobile technician that our 1996 Skidoo Scandic 20-inch-wide track, high-low gear snowmobile with a 500 fan engine needs a new engine. This was a wonderful gift years ago from our sister club, the Wiscasset Sno-Goers; thank you again, guys. It has got years of service.
It went into the shop for some electrical gremlins; lots was done to it to improve things, and then more went bad with it, so it definitely now needs a confirmed stator to get the lighting circuit working again. However, the technician believes there is a low engine sound, and with 7,000 miles on it, he didn’t recommend putting a stator into it, just to get a different engine or upgrade to a different chassis altogether. For due diligence' sake, just throwing this out there to our community of riders: Does anybody know of or have an engine sitting in their basement or garage, something that they know would easily go into that '96 chassis?
Most importantly, go Patriots!
Thanks everyone,
Groomer guy ☃️
