Buyers Guides

Giant Loop is a popular name in adventure off-roading. The company has a variety of products, like packs and such. Most were made with adventure motorcycles in mind. Many of those products easily carry over to 4x4 quads with their handy racks. Fewer of the products are an easy switch for UTVs. We recently obtained a Giant Loop 5-gallon Gas bag. We have often had excursions where more fuel would be handy, but we had honestly not considered carrying that fuel in a bag until we tried the Gas bag. Giant Loop is a popular…

Stay safe on the trail; know where you are By Casey Cordeiro Photos by Casey Cordeiro and the included manufacturers Having a GPS system on board your ATV or UTV is an invaluable resource when you’re out on the trail. Whether you use it for navigation or for emergencies, a mobile GPS can get you to and from destinations, pinpoint your location, and sometimes communicate with others. In the last several months we have put all of these GPS systems to good use. One UTV adventure was 710 miles in length over a…

Mess be gone By the staff of Dirt Wheels Getting wild and rowdy in the dirt means your riding gear is going to meet mud and muck. Racers tend to keep multiple sets of gear in their bag to change out between races, while some weekend warriors just want to keep the rest of their clean gear separated from the dirty stuff. Fly Racing’s $10.95 Dirt Laundry bag is an inexpensive way to store your roached riding threads in the same gear bag as your clean stuff, or you can just toss it in the truck bed until it’s time for a…

Loving a good rear view By the staff of Dirt Wheels If you’re like us, you’ll agree that seeing what’s going on behind you is important. Even forward-thinkers need to look back occasionally. That is especially true if you have a friend following or just need to back up. On our Can-Am Maverick Sport we mounted an old automotive mirror to the center of the front roll bar to fill in the backward blanks. It worked great until we added a spare-tire carrier above the bed. After that addition, a set of side mirrors were our…

Many of the fully restored machines you see gracing the pages of Dirt Wheels Magazine lately are the work of Mike Palmgren owner of Vintage Motorsports Restorations. Mike not only loves restoring machines back to their former glory, he owns a few as well. For years he sat on this untouched, first year,  Honda U.S. 90 but now thinks it shall have a new home. Today, he’s crating up the rare Honda, with a slight patina, and sending it to its new owner in England.  Stay tuned to the pages of Dirt Wheels for more of Mikes…

A better open face By the staff of Dirt Wheels Arai is a Japanese, family-owned helmet company that believes that helmets are vital and valuable safety equipment meant for long-term use and extended satisfaction. Aside from a deeply held belief in absolute quality, Arai believes in a smooth, rounded shell shape both for intrinsic strength and so the helmet doesn’t have edges that catch during a crash. The Ram-X is innovative in its shape in another way. Even though it is an open face, the shell extends along the jaw,…

The most unique UTV trailer ever By the staff of Dirt Wheels In the early days of four-wheeled dune play, before there were three-wheelers, quads or UTVs, there were lightweight Volkswagen dune buggies. It didn’t take much to haul them, and many folks just used a T-trailer. It was a glorified tow bar that lifted the wheels off the ground. Our sport is much more advanced now. Off-roaders travel in giant motorhomes, massive toy haulers and so forth. We have embraced camping luxury to the point that our rigs may not…

Boots for the brave By the staff of Dirt Wheels When your handlebar is at full lock, the changing terrain is upsetting your sport quad’s suspension as you keep your thumb pinned on the throttle, and you start shifting your weight while passing through the corner’s apex. You are building towards standing for the jump ahead. What non-quad riders don’t realize is how tough it is to keep your foot planted on the outside peg as forces fight against your ankle through the rough stuff. There are boots that are built better…

A modern all-terrain/desert tire By the staff of Dirt Wheels ITP’s new Tenacity tire series is somewhat unique. It is offered in a Tenacity XSR that is steel belted for extreme driving conditions or the Tenacity XNR with nylon belts. The XNR has all of the high-performance design features of the XSR, but is 4 pounds lighter per tire and aimed at recreational riders. Another sign that these are performance tires—the size. They are offered only in 32x10-15—the tires that only the highest-performance sport machines come…

Comfort is required By the staff of Dirt Wheels Imagine you are settling your UTV into a hard left-hander, the rear wheels chewing through tacky dirt as you depress the throttle for more power, sending the machine into a controlled pitch. All of a sudden the outside rear tire grabs a rut, and instead of staying in control, your body slides across the stock seat, the stock seat belt allows your upper body to lean, and your grip on the wheel is compromised. Instead of viewing the corner’s exit, you are seeing sky, dirt…

Riding in a cloud  By the staff of Dirt Wheels We tested Just1’s impressively light and comfortable J12 Carbon helmet a while back. The lid has great ventilation and aggressive styling. Just1 has taken the knowledge learned from their J12 into account to create two all-new moto gear lineups. They outfitted us with a set of premium J-Flex Aria gear that was designed to meet the stringent demands of talented and aggressive professional motocross racers. We didn’t have any of those guys, so our staff donned the gloves,…

Doing the Can-Am crush By the staff of Dirt Wheels Polaris has pretty much claimed ownership of the UTV race that is part of the two-week rock-and dust-fest that is King of the Hammers. This originally tiny event held among friends has grown into an international happening, like the child of Burning Man and the Baja 1000. Despite the fact that the UTV class is the largest of the event, it still feels like something of an awkward stepchild. UTVs are more than accepted, but it is obvious that the organization reserves…