What do you call the first ride of the season?
• Test ride = Try out a new machine or new area
• Break in ride = Putting the first miles on a new machine
• Road ride = Snow is thin and only able to ride on a designated road
• Ditch Ride = Midwest snowmobilers ride ditches before the trails are open or lakes are frozen
• Shake out ride = Put some miles on your machine on a short low risk ride to ensure everything is working well before a big trip

I had just made plans to ride Revelstoke over the Thanksgiving weekend during a preseason party with friends. I didn’t want a trip like that to be compromised by anything so I wanted to take a quick “shake out ride” to work out any bugs in the sled or my gear. There weren’t great snow conditions anywhere close to home so I decided a trip to Coquihalla pass in British Columbia was a good option for a little day trip from the Seattle area. “The Coq” is about 3.5 hours away from my house so I loaded up my sled on my Marlon sled deck and packed up all my gear to meet up with a new friend that I had met at the same party. We arrived at the Snow Park around 8:30am and met Chris and Brian from Sled360 who had arrived the night before. Chris and Brian both were on a “Break in Ride” with their new 2016 Polaris Pro’s, so we each had different goals in mind for our first ride. The snow was ok at best but we were able to ride and that is all that mattered at that point. Through the ride that day I had discovered that I had forgotten my BCA Link Radio in the truck and my InReach Explorer never got turned on to track my ride. The other thing that I discovered was that the thumb warmer on my sled had quit working and needed to be fixed. All of this was able to be addressed before the Revelstoke ride the following weekend.

It is always great to get in a smaller ride at the beginning of the season to “Shake Out” my equipment before bigger trip like my Thanksgiving ride in Revelstoke BC. Please share below in the comments what you call your first ride of the season and what your goal of that ride was.