Tips from the Moonshine Riders

* How to Prepare for Snowmobiling in the 2018-2019 season **
1. Go to your local snowmobile dealer, smile and give the first guy you see $200. This will get you used to spending money there on a regular basis.
2. Fill a 45-gallon barrel with sand. Lower it into a hole. Now lift it out. If you can, add water to the sand and try it again. Do this 5 times per day. This will get your back in shape for lifting your sled out of the deep snow.
3. Tie a rope to a heavy-duty spring. Pull the rope repeatedly with each arm until the pain in your shoulders meets somewhere in middle your back. This will get you in shape for starting your bud’s sled, which he conveniently forgot was out of gas. It’s best to do this exercise while someone is spraying starting fluid into your nose and eyes also.
4. Drink four ounces of cod liver oil mixed with a strong laxative. Dress with long underwear, wool pants, snowmobile bibs, insulated boots and heavy coat. Walk far into the woods without any paper products and wait for a personal emergency. This get you prepare for the Beer chits that come out of nowhere, and at the wrong time.
5. Place your hands in a bucket of ice water for 20 minutes. Put the carburetor from your lawn mower in the bottom of your deep freeze. Now climb in the deep freeze, shut the lid and overhaul it while holding a pen light in your mouth. This gets you prepared to work on your sled in the freezing cold and black of night. Advanced riders do this with a leatherman tool.
6. Dress up in your new $350 snowmobile bibs. Pour 2 stroke oil down the right leg, gasoline down the other and Peppermint Schnapps and Beer all over the front. Fill your boots with ice cubes and ask your wife or girlfriend to dance. This will prepare her for the stops at the local bars during a ride.
7. Put on a Balaclava and a full-face helmet. Attempt to drink hot chocolate through the opening. Advanced riders attempt this while riding a lawn tractor over in the nearest farmers’ plowed field.
8. Find a place where you can pay $3.50 a litre for regular gas; $19.99 per litre of oil; $16 for a Hamburger and frozen French Fries; $3 for a coke and $160 to sleep in a cold cabin on a bed with springs sticking through the mattress. Stay for two nights, minimum. This will prepare you on the high cost of your future winter trips.
9. Practice explaining to your banker why you need another loan for a $70,000 truck to pull the four $20,000 sleds, on your
$15,000 trailer that you still owe $50,000 on.
* Now, you are 50% ready, and somewhat conditioned to head for the trails and ride your sled.