New Flares & Night Riding
We had the most amazing time out on the trails after I finally caved and let my friends throw some fender flares on my machine. I’ve been fighting it forever! – but there are a couple of reasons that I felt that they were a good decision at the end of the day. I have a CanAm Maverick Sport RC and it does come with stock fender flares… those work (probably I’m guessing…) for Maverick Sports that aren’t the RC – or Rock Crawler additions. My machine had 30″ wheels and they stick out way past the stock fender flares. This resulted in me and the machine getting covered in mud – well, sandy mud in our area. I bought my husband flares for his Polaris General a while ago that he never used and they oddly fit my machine with a little heat and tweaking so here we are.
Our friend Ken is a master at everything so it wasn’t a surprise that he could take these generic flares from Amazon and heat them up, cut them, and custom fit them to my machine. I won’t lie, I can’t believe the difference. I used to hit any puddle – seriously any size puddle – like a cup of water on the ground and get sprayed with dirt. Once he got these fender flares on my machine it was a world of difference.
My biggest concern – honestly cuz I am who I am – was the look of the machine and I actually love the way they look! They don’t kill the look of my machine and they are crazy functional.
The other amazing thing that happened when I got my new flares on was that I got to take my first trip over to our friend’s cabin BY MYSELF! – (middle picture below) I have been riding with my husband a bunch of times and I go riding with friends a lot as well but I’ve never taken my machine somewhere with no one behind me or in front of me. It was so exciting for me that I had to stop on the trail to take a picture. There is something so freeing about driving around in the woods by yourself.
I can’t even put words to how glad I am to be a part of this community of folks that love riding as much as we do – and also how lucky we are to have the best friends of the planet that can help with these types of custom jobs. It goes to show that you can buy fender flares off amazon – even if they aren’t meant for you specific machine – and make your riding experience even better with a little torching and measuring – and of course the right people.
The day we put the flares on we almost immediately went out for a night ride – part of the reason for the title of the page. We all wanted to see how they would work because honestly my machine was always the dirtiest one when we came off the trails. I couldn’t believe the difference which is a big thing for me to say. I used to “try” to go slower through puddles and mud to “try” to stay cleaner. It didn’t fix everything – I’ll be honest – and I still get dirty and muddy but it’s light years ahead of where I was before the flares.