Gary, it’s remarkable that you were able to find such an amazing likeness, although, in fairness I think my quads have a little better definition. It does pay respect to the weight of having to make such difficult decisions though.
Let me throw a knuckle ball at you. How about a restoring a Blade? I would love to hear your comments about the engineering of that puppy. I didn’t get into sleds until the early 90s so difficult for me to relate to your antiques but I do admire your abilities to give oldies new life.
FYI Whitedust, I could never hit a knuckleball
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Blade, wow, I hadn’t thought about them for a long, long time I don’t remember them all that well so your question motivated me to do a little reading. My take is that the Blade sleds were a combination of engineering innovation and practicality:
Just to name a few features on the Stryker model, it had a dual A-arm front suspension that was an engineering masterpiece and used a longer version of the M10 rear suspension, both of which were state of art suspensions at the time. Blade also eliminated the chaincase and jackshaft in the drive system, which sounds like some kind of spinoff of direct drive systems of the 70’s . The Stryker also had a reverse mounted motor, with the carbs facing forward (possibly to accommodate the drive system), and a very different rider seating angle from other sleds of the time, which was essentially adopted by the big brands in later years. With a standard 136” track, the ride and handling was said to be excellent.
Although there was a lot of out of the box thinking, Blade went to Polaris for their Liberty motors, with the 700 being the mainstay. They also used Polaris handlebars, and the tank looks suspiciously like the tank on my 2000 XC.
Thanks for reminding me about this piece of snowmobiling history. Would be cool to score one but think it’s a long shot. The low production numbers make them truly rare sleds. For those that are curious, this is photo of a Blade Stryker. Beautiful, innovative sled, too bad the little Eveleth, MN based company couldn’t make It in a tough market.
