I've spent about an hour or so tearing up my back yard (literally) with the new 2007 Yamaha Raptor 700R SE quad. (I say literally because I've been out there twice filling in the canyon in the keyhole caused by the tires.)

There are ups and downs to riding on the back yard track: The up side to riding there is that I can ride on it when ever I want and don't have to load up the truck.

The down side is that the track is only about 543 feet around. (Click For Image Of Track With Turn Name Lables) It has 6 turns. Normal direction of travel is CCW. The fastest place is the back straight, which runs from Shady Curve, right next to Oak Bend, and over to the Keyhole. The Back Straight is probably a bit over 200 feet long with a slight bend in the middle. I can get second gear there, but it's kind of narrow with room for only one quad or two motorcycles very close together. So it limited to what you can do on a machine that big.

So on Saturday we took the kids and the toys to Cz's teacher's house where they've got a slightly bigger field, and you can open up to 3rd gear. This is the largest area I've been able to ride it so far, and even with the small riding area, I found out just how heavy that ~400 lb quad is and how much work it takes to muscle it around tight areas at (reletively) high speeds.

I'm really looking forward to Ocotillo Wells this weekend. Unfortunately, there's a Jeep Safari going on there at the same time so it will be very crowded. At least it will give me time to get some material for a few posts about the Safari, although I won't have my jeep there.