Wat? We are asking for legal trails to ride, not opening the flood gates for redneck yahoos to legally rip down the sholders of NYS roads past houses and piss people off. We are talking out in mountains, and shit far off the beaten path. Marked trails, mapped out. Exactly like snowmobile trails. If they intersect someones private property, the owners agree or disagree to allow them to pass. If its not allowed, they remove that intersection from the map, and put up an alt path… if your caught riding across it when your not suposed to you get ticketed/arrested. Same as sleds.
Noise is the first thing people pop off about. I know my sled and other piped sleds are about the same Db, but higher pitched and echo off the snow covered trees/land which carry the noise MUCH farther. I a piped 450 race machine is loud, but even then ripping around trails on those things you only really hear them 200 yards or so away. They just bark alot more than whine like a sled. Still, just like sleds there are tons of trails sections where there are signs saying SLOW/QUITE… those people are kind enough to allow the trail to pass over their/by their land, aslong as people give the respect back but taking it easy and goign quietly. Also again, just like sleds, their are DB laws for them machines, and encon & police have set up check points and sat in trails and yanked people for loud pipes plenty of times. Not to mention 75% of the atvs out there that want to ride these trails would be 4x4’s which rarely get piped, becasue they are tanks and 2hp from a loud pipe wont mean shit. They put big tires on them and go to town.
Generally, people that would be pissed off about atv’s going by are the same people pissed at sleds, pissed off at the loud little kids down the road, pissed when it rains out, and pissed when the paperboy throws it to the sidewalk not their front step. Grumpy people will allways find something to piss themselves off it doesnt matter the gateway. All they have to do is say I dont want a trail 200 yards from my house, and thats it. Like I said I bet those people already spoke up about the sleds, to the damage is already done.
And they dont need to blow much money at all. They already charge ATV’s registration fees, so they are already taking in money from the sport. All they need to do is contact land owners, most of which are already on the list for sled trails, counties, and clubs.
Like MK4 said, alot of the reasons other states work out well, are becasue of the VAST un-inhabited land. where people dont see/hear anyone riding, unless your out there yourself. There are LOTS of mountains and areas just in a 100 mile circle of here that you could ride for weeks at a time, not see the same trail twice and never see another car or house while doing so. The Hatfield trails system is alot like that, send them miles up a mt. and they are out of sight out of mind. Since they make it legal to ride the roads in that area, you see them at gas stations, hotels and stop-n-gos, but they blend into traffic and as long as they dont dick off and wheelie and shit, its all good.
They wouldnt be 100% street legal. like taking it down the thruway, or ripping around cities. it would be legal to ride trail to trail, down a road with traffic. And you cant just take a dirtbike and make it street legal, there is way too much more to that story. Its the same thing though once it legal and registered/inspected yes as a DRZ400SMR, KTM SMC’s… sure, but those are 100% the same as any other street bike… the laws still apply. The only thing about a quad being “street legal” would be they are not safe at all at high speed on pavement. A street legal enduro/sumo bike has street tires or atleast 70/30 enduro tires, not Holeshot mx tires, or 3" mud tires which you would find on atv’s. Not only would you kill a set of atv tires in a matter of 10 miles on the road, they are slick as hell and would be death on wet roads. Brakes are another thing, even the best YFZ450 brake setup I had on my race quad wouldnt be up to the task to stop me from rear ending a car ahead of me if I needed to get on the fast, even if I had tires that hooked on pavement. And lastly, they are twitchy as hell ar 65mph on asphalt. Very un aerodynamic, the fenders start to lift like wings at high speeds.