The Untold Story of Backwoods BMP

For anyone who's just turned this episode on, they're doing the calculation in their head. What should I watch? Why should I do this? Should I just keep swiping? What's something you guys are going to tell that person to get them to stop?

Don't swipe. Put that thumb on there. Stop. Hear us out and watch the entire episode. The reason you should watch this whole episode is because Trevor actually got me to stop and sit for an hour and 17 minutes.

Which is rare.

Because I had a show going.

I had a show, too.

That's tough. You've got people waiting on you over there.

Those are my people right there, and they're like, where are you? We're able to do this because of our people, which is cool. But we touch on some topics that not a lot of people ask about, and you get to learn a little bit of the ins and outs of how this stuff really happened. How did Backwoods get here? What are the key points?

We told a little bit of our story that nobody knows. A lot of that stuff we've never told publicly.

You know our products, you know our riders, but get to know us a little bit more. One thing I've learned is that we are all the same. We're all just a little bit weirder, a little bit crazier, and that's what we are. We're die-hard snowmobilers, and we're in it for the long run. We're in it for all it's worth. So we're not going anywhere. You might as well chime in now. Get on board.

Get on the Backwoods train.

You going to put a train horn on this thing? We need a train horn. Somebody hit the horn. You should watch it because of the train horns.

Ladies and gentlemen, what time is it? It is 5:42 Eastern. We are at the Race Into Winter New Hampshire Grass Drags, all the way over on the East Coast. Epping, New Hampshire. First-timer. These guys invited us out, basically. Very kind of you guys. You gave us a bed, room and board, even fed us some food last night.

When we can help, we'll do what we can. Do the best we can.

We had this show on our radar and talked to a lot of people, and Chet and Ryan from Backwoods basically convinced us. Hey, you guys need to come out here and at least give it a shot.

Give it a shot. There's Hay Days, and then east of the Mississippi this is the biggest event out here. So if you're going to come over, this is the one to come to.

Now, before we get going too far into this, I said, guys, we need to spice this episode up. What can we give away? I'm like, can we give away a bumper? And Chet was like, why don't we just give away a thousand dollars?

Right, because you never know. Some people just want one bumper, a rear bumper, a front bumper, spindles. We've got a lot of stuff to choose from now. Some people just want a bunch of hats.

That's a lot of hats.

A thousand dollars of merch, there you go.

A thousand dollar gift card. So that's what we're giving away. If you're watching this video on YouTube, or on the podcast, wherever you're listening or watching, in the description we'll have a link. It'll take you to the giveaway where the gift card will be presented. It'll be super slick, super easy. I think it takes like 10 seconds. Pop in your name and email.

Easy peasy.

And we will pick the winner in two weeks, so before the next episode drops, someone's going to have that gift card. Two weeks from when this goes live. And we are live, and this show is still going, so we've got people flowing in. The boys are over here making it happen. We've got friends walking by.

So let's kick things off. We've got a slew of questions. But first-timer here at this show, guys, we had ourselves a morning. Deviant Ink is stacking three shows in 7 days. We had to ship stuff out to you guys, and you guys were kind enough to trailer it down. Then we had to haul stuff in suitcases on the airplane. We get here, we have nothing sharp, we have no tools, we have no chairs. The only thing we have is a beautiful big tent to protect us from the elements.

It's a beautiful tent, I'll give you that.

So did you guys get a couple nice gusts this morning? People were saying riffraff from the hurricane down south is making its way up the coast.

If you ask me, it was the hurricane. That was crazy. We had wind pretty much all day. Luckily we had like 10 guys basically holding down each leg, and we had to take down a lot of our stuff. There were tents flying into the pond out here.

We've been cooking all day in the sun, zero shade. Tomorrow it might rain. We're not going to put our tent up, I don't think, because we don't want to get you guys wet.

It won't bother us. We'll survive.

Anyways, we've got Backwoods here. This has been something I've wanted to do since we started the Sledder Cast: sit down with you guys and get to know the two of you and the company on a more intimate level. Last year I would say we were somewhat dating.

Early stages. Early stage courting.

And it slowly progressed, and then it progressed pretty quickly, and now we've got a legit relationship.

We do. We're close. You're taking us to dinner tonight?

I mean, we don't have a car, so technically you're taking us.

Fran will handle that. It is cool. It started off as just a couple of text messages back and forth. I knew who you were, you knew who we were. Then we'd see you out on the snow, see you out in the industry. Obviously we're surrounded by all of your Deviant wraps everywhere. And then finally we got to meet each other, and it kind of clicked really quickly.

I think the biggest thing was you guys came all the way out to our neck of the woods for Out West Sled Fest. That's a relatively small show, but it packs a lot of riders out west into a small weekend.

Great group of people there.

It's a solid group. You guys have come out the last few years, flown all the way in, and we just had a great conversation. I know with you, Chet, you came up and you're like, who are you? What's going on here?

Yeah, we wanted to hear the story. Are you some big corporation, and you're the little pawn here?

And I couldn't believe it. I was like, no man, it's me and Mack. We've got Cody, we've got a handful of team members. We have a great group, but we're out here just hustling like you guys are, trying to do cool stuff. I think we could see that we were both pushing limits and going above and beyond.

Right. We're not just dipping our toes in. We're cannonballing. We're jumping right in. Someone told us it was deep enough to dive, and we didn't even check. Most of the time we're just trying to hang on to whatever we're doing.

Well, you've got some great ideas, too, which I can't wait to slowly release throughout the year. We'll tease a few of them here.

But to kick things off, here's the outside perspective of Backwoods, from my perspective. I'm super interested in origin stories, like how you guys got started. It was kind of like crickets, not a lot going on, and then all of a sudden everyone is rocking Backwoods everywhere. And I know that's not how it happened.

For some people it seems like it happened quickly.

So I'm curious, when did this start? What's the origin story with Backwoods? Take us back.

It's definitely a long story. Where it all really started is where we are, New England. We're riding in rough conditions, and it goes back to the first time I crashed a snowmobile, or at least this particular green XM, the Freeride. I needed a bumper, or wanted a bumper, and couldn't afford one. So I said, I'm going to make one. We didn't bring it here, but we have it at the show. The original.

She's a beaut.

She's a good girl. It's going to be in the museum someday. So I built it. I couldn't afford it, couldn't buy it, so I built it.

But how did you build it? What's your background? Did you know the right people, or did you just figure it out?

I was a kid back then. I would have been 15 or 16, 10 years ago. But my dad always had a shop. He always had a welder, he had tons of tools I'd take out and never put back, and he always showed me a thing or two. So I just jumped in, and the first welds were pretty rough. There are some people that bought that bumper, and I appreciate you. But yeah, just diving in, making it happen. Believe me, if you saw it, it's not pretty. It's nothing to write home about. But everybody started somewhere.

So boom, that happened. Here's the bumper, it's on the snowmobile. One person thought it was cool, another guy thought it was cool. So I started an Instagram, I started a free website, and I slowly started building up the story of me in the shop, taking pictures.

So back then was it just you?

Yeah, it would have been just Chet back in the early days.

Still friends with Ry and other people, and they'd ask, what are you doing? Oh, just whatever. I didn't want to tell anybody. So I'm developing this brand, building this brand, and it's building, it's building. I'm working for a guy at a landscaping company, and all of a sudden I'm ready for it. I dropped the website, and I hyped this up big. This was big. And we dropped it, and somebody walking by just mooned us.

Put that thing away.

So anyways, I dropped the website, and I got an order. Not from my mom, not from my aunt.

That's what I was going to ask you.

It's someone from Washington, someone from Colorado, a guy from somewhere in Canada, a guy in Vermont, and then a couple of Mainers. And it just instantly opened my eyes. Not only was I stoked that these people bought this product that I'd never even shipped, but I only made steel versions, yet I offered aluminum online. When people ordered, they only ordered the aluminum ones, and I did not know how to weld aluminum when I posted all that.

So it was a learning curve, nonetheless. I had five aluminum bumpers I needed to produce, and I'd never welded aluminum before. I think that was my first anxiety attack. I thought there was a gas leak in the shop, because I was like, why do I feel so weird right now? Something's wrong. So anyways, I get these things done. I'm failing with the welder. I took a steel MIG gun and turned it into an aluminum one, shortened the lines, push-pull, blah blah blah. And I sent them out. Rolled the dice, off they go.

And that's when the need for Ryan presented itself.

You knew Ryan before this?

We've been friends a long time. Probably 25 years.

So let's hand it over to Ryan for a minute. I send out these bumpers, and people start to get them. What happens next?

I was on a lot of New England snowmobile pages at the time, and people were buying these products from Chet. And of course, you know how people are. Right to the internet. Look at this, I bought it from this local company. What is this? This is awful. They were brutalizing Chet, just beating him up. And I'm messaging people, I'm commenting. Hey, he's just starting out. He's figuring it out. He's going for it. He's just a kid. Give him a break. Give the poor kid a chance here.

These people were pretty fired up. And I didn't even ask Ryan to do it.

I just saw my buddy on Facebook getting hammered. Meanwhile, the whole time I'm like, this is a great idea. I'm all for it. Right from the get-go I was like, this is great, let's do this, let me know how I can help. Well, little did I know that's how I was going to start helping the most.

I got a hold of two of these customers. They're actually New Englanders, they're local. They may even be here, it's hard to say. I said, send me some pictures, let me see what you got. I see the pictures, I get a hold of Chet, and I'm like, all right, bud.

I'm welding, and it looks so bad, then I'm grinding, and nothing is symmetrical.

So I messaged these people and said, hey, I'll get your money back. Send me the product back. Please take the post down. We're going to make this right. And we did. That was the very early stages of Backwoods.

So you came in to put fires out, basically.

I was putting fires out. I still do a lot of that, at a different level now. But that's how we got started.

First employee brought on. First partner.

Unpaid, for sure. Ryan worked for me for probably 5 years unpaid.

There were several years of just doing marketing stuff. Commenting when someone asked, what bumper do I buy? Jumping in, tagging Backwoods, giving them the spiel. I knew the product. I knew what he was doing.

That's impressive. 5 years.

Think about this, too. When we're talking about this, that was what, 2014, 2015? I was looking through the Instagram the other day, and the very first post, though there may have been some deleted before it, is 2014. And that's the bumper we're talking about, in the picture. So that's a long time ago.

Well, I kept journals. I went to Maine Maritime to be a merchant marine and ship out as an engineer. I ended up getting kicked out of Maine Maritime, I went and worked in the Gulf for a little bit, and then I went to New York Maritime. And when I went to New York Maritime, I remember writing that Backwoods is done. I'm sorry to say that.

Was that after the first set went out?

Oh, yeah. That was probably more than just that bumper. But I wasn't making any money, and it was just stressing me out. I wrote it off probably two times. I'm sorry to see the end of Backwoods, but there are bigger things going on.

I think that's why there was such a big span. After New York, I got back into Maine Maritime, and I was still welding bumpers in a barn with no heat. I was bending pipe by hand out in front of this barn, and all the guys would drive by. It was a regimented school, and I'd be out there in my khakis, and people would be laughing at me. What is he doing?

Building an empire, baby.

I'd come down with these freaking boxes before formation or after formation and drop them off. Castine, Maine. Go ahead and Google that. Go way up the coast, look at the post office there, and picture my goofy self walking in there with a bunch of Backwoods bumpers. But I kept going, kept going. I finally graduated, and we had a decision: whether to pursue it or not. And we dove in head first.

I very much told him, whatever you want to do, I'm down. Let's do it. I was working full-time at the time.

When you graduate, they ship you out. I was getting ready to go overseas, and we actually had a new place lined up. When I got back, we were going to move into this shop. It was going to be perfect. Great, big, plenty of space. Get out of the little garage, the horse stall I was working out of before. And I get a phone call about 2 days before I'm getting ready to go overseas, and it's the guy telling me it all fell apart. He was renting it to somebody else. Sorry.

And we were communicating by email while you were on the ship.

I remember the day we were getting ready to leave. I called Ryan and said, Ryan, I'm not going to be able to communicate. Email is really grim on this thing, but you need to find us a shop.

Okay, can you tell me what year we're in right now?

2016 or 17. No, it would have been 17.

So a few years have passed, and now we're at this point.

It's still just me at that point. Ryan's on unpaid support.

But you're like, Ryan, get us a shop.

When I get back, we're going to kick some ass.

I work nights as a diesel mechanic, so I had mornings available. I was going to do mornings and then weekends, and I get out at midnight, so there were some stipulations. And he says, you've got to find us a shop. So I started looking around and found a 1,200 square foot shop in Windham.

Huge. 1,200 feet.

It was big. It had an office, it was perfect. It was close to me. It wasn't very close to Chet, but it worked, and it was in the price range. So I called his father and said, hey, you've got to come look at this place with me. Joe came with me, we went through the whole place, we took a ton of pictures, and I'm looking at Joe and I'm like, I think this is it. I think we should just tell them. I think Chet's going to be down with it. We need something. Chet made the decision. He graduated, he did his thing, but we're going to go full bore with Backwoods. So we needed a shop. We needed a home base. And we locked it down, Chet was stoked on the pictures, and we made it happen.

I got off the boat, got home and went straight to the shop. The guys already had stuff moved in, and it was game on.

What was plan B in your head?

There wasn't one. We were just doing it. There is no plan B. This is the plan. We never really thought of it as not working. Ever.

And I've been on both sides of that, because part of my brain says when you're building solo, you should have a plan B. If this line doesn't work, I need to know what my next line is.

I don't have a plan B either.

But I know the value in it. If you shut those doors and the only door is plan A, you force yourself to figure it out. A lot of times with a plan B you give up way too quick.

Right, because you know you have an out. It's easy. Persistence is everything. It's sticking with it.

We talk about these Windham days. I was bending the pipe by hand, I was welding the pipe, I was packaging the material, I was shipping the material. I was literally doing everything. Those early stages were hard. It was a lot of late nights, a lot of literal blood, sweat and tears, and that's something we can elaborate on later. But we just stuck with it. We made it work. And I remember the day Ryan said, hey, I think I'm ready to come over full-time.

I wasn't ready. But it just worked out perfectly.

So when Ryan comes over full-time, time frame again?

That would be 2018. Definitely 18 or 19, somewhere in there. Things were going well. We actually had sales. I would go in in the morning, prep the bumpers, sandblast the bumpers, powder coat the bumpers and ship the bumpers, while he welded and ran this little tiny CNC.

Oh man, we skipped over the very first one. We can get back to that.

It was just the two of us. Then we had one guy who eventually took over prepping and sandblasting, so then I could just powder and ship. I was still working a 10-hour shift at night, and I'd go back in at midnight and do whatever it took to get orders out the next day. That was years of that.

Okay, so we're still pre-2020. 2018, 2019.

In 2019 we bought the shop. So it had to have been 17 or 18 when Ryan went full-time.

This is the question I'm going to lead into now. I think we're getting close to the biggest break, the biggest win you guys got. I'm still waiting for it. When you look back, what was the thing where, if it didn't happen, who knows?

It'd be some products that helped us really gain a lot of traction. Probably when Gen 4 was released, honestly, and we came up with the first ever skid plate front bumper, a bumper that fit the full body skid plate. Everybody else, you couldn't mount to it.

There are so many of those when it relates to products. That was a breakthrough. Since the Gen 4 release, we've been the first to release a product and get it to production levels, and that's always been our goal. If I'm wrong, call me out and I'll throw you a coupon. There may be a couple where somebody else did it first, but hey.

But honestly, if you ask me, those early days, man, they were tough. And I had so many people laughing at me. I can get emotional thinking about a lot of this. It was probably the first customers easing up on me and not killing me online. And the only reason they did it was because Ryan was right there on the other end of it. Shout out to those guys. You know who you are.

If you're listening to this, comment or something. Let us know.

There were so many times it would have been so easy to give up. It really would have. But it was the persistence, and I think the support. So I don't know. That's a really tough question. A lot of it is the first-time products. Every time we spent the extra hour, it did pay off.

Making different products, products that really stood out to people, that people were really interested in and intrigued by. I think that helped a ton. Changing the way of looking at things and building products differently to suit everybody. Back then everybody was running that skid plate. That was a cool product.

So if I'm brand new to snowmobiling and I don't know much about what's going on in the industry, and someone walks up to your booth right here and says, all right, boys, why should I buy a Backwoods versus walking down the road a little ways and buying a competitor? What do you say in that moment to that person?

That is a good question. Well, I'll tell you what. You definitely don't have to buy a Backwoods. There are plenty of great options out there. There really are. But what I am sure of is that the way we do things is different than anybody else out there. Backwoods has a little bit of a different spin to it. I always say, you're not just buying a product, you're joining a family. And I mean that.

What we've been through to get to the point we're at now, this is everything to us. We are die-hard snowmobilers. We've been doing this our whole lives. A lot of these products solved our problems back in the day, and now we realize we can solve other people's problems. We can keep people out riding longer, especially on the East Coast. There's not a lot of season to begin with, and then we get good snow, bad snow, rain, whatever it may be. When you're out there, you want to be out there. We feel that.

So when we make a product, we're making sure it's not just because it looks cool. It's not just the cool colors, which we have way too many of.

People love colors.

But we're constantly evolving. We're putting in the time and effort. Who else is smashing bumpers? We're doing the math, and then we're testing it out on the snow. We want to see our stuff fail so we can change it, adapt it, make it better. We want to hear feedback. We want to adapt and continue to grow, because this is our baby. That's what we call Backwoods.

That's exactly what it is. You've got to nourish it. You've got to tend to it. You've got to take care of it.

And we've got to stand behind everything we do and everything we create. We're not going anywhere, and we're not going to survive if we don't follow through with everything we do, keep up with our customers and make sure people are happy and the products are doing what they're supposed to do. It's in our blood.

You see a lot of companies, in this industry or not, where the founders and owners are one, two, three, four layers deep. Not right there, connected to the customer. Someone places an order. They exchange value with you guys. You created something, they bought it, they paid you money for it. As an entrepreneur, that's the greatest feeling there is. I created this, and someone thought it was so valuable that they paid me hundreds of dollars for it, because they're going to get that value out of it. You guys are literally on that same level with those customers. So when you talk about family, you want people to feel like it's family because it really is. There aren't multiple layers between you guys and the end user.

You go back to the Windham days. We needed some of you guys making those orders. We needed that order in order to buy the material so we could make the other orders. So every single person made a difference. It literally was the difference between it happening or not.

It takes an army. We couldn't have done it without our customers.

I'll tell you, catch me on 95 headed north, and there's a bumper on a guy's sled driving by. I roll the window down and give a thumbs up, and they look at us and give it right back. There's no better feeling.

Just a second ago, what was unique: we're sitting here getting set up, and all of a sudden everyone starts clapping. Someone walked up and hard cash just transferred from one person to you guys. You just got another team member, and everyone sat there and clapped it up.

We appreciate every sale.

I thought that was cool.

Moving on just a little bit. One of the things that's very noticeable within the industry is that you guys have a ton of athletes sponsored, ambassadors, pros, everywhere in between. I might even say it feels like one of the most.

It's an army. How does he even manage that?

How do you manage that?

It's a lot, I tell you. No, I just keep in contact. Everybody keeps in contact coming into the season, and we get everybody taken care of. Think about it. It's the guys we work with, the guys we're helping out. We're trying to be there for them, we're hooking them up with stuff. They're calling us and telling us what they're up to, they're sending us pictures of their sled builds. Those are my friends. We're family, man. We're still talking about colors and this and that. Yes, send me a picture of your wrap. Let's match it.

And when you cross over to, all right, you're now working with us, that means you've put a level of effort into the industry as well. It's not really a tiered system, but the guys we're closest with, we're so close to them because they're putting in as much work as we are. That's incredibly important. Luckily there's a plethora of guys, but anyone who rides for us or represents us does it because that's exactly what they do. Whether it's a small piece or a big piece, they're part of who we are as well. You've got to earn it. We're not just handing them out.

It's been pretty incredible and fun to watch.

It's been quite a ride.

Anyone who's doing anything cool, it's like they've got Backwoods products.

They've got good taste, I guess.

So it's fall of 2024, just getting into fall. Getting chilly. We didn't really talk much about what's off the table and on the table here.

No, it's fine. I'll butt in whenever I want. We'll just punch each other in the knee when we're saying something we shouldn't.

What's the future as far as product goes? What are you guys excited about?

Product. If you ask about the future of what we're going to offer, that's one thing, but if you say product specifically, then that's a conversation. A lot of our products started because of stuff Ryan broke, stuff I broke. Well, now we're starting to deal with products that Brett breaks. People doing backflips in the backcountry. Kyle breaks. We can't do the things these guys are doing. They push sleds to levels we can't, and then we can help them in ways. Toby, Sheppard, Sam Pilgrim. These guys are really hard on stuff.

Oh, yeah, big time. Toby is tough.

Look at our spotlight series. These are our people nowadays. It's great. And that's how you really tap into some crazy new products. You're going to see a lot more billet stuff. One thing about our products: we're not afraid to take as much time as we need to make the right product. Above and beyond. CNC machining is a very in-depth process. Actually look at some of our products. Some of them have inlaid chamfered edges. We could cut this differently, we could use different material. There's a lot that goes into them. So I'm excited for more of the CNC components, more of the billet components. I think you're going to see us come to the forefront of billet products. And I'm talking billet everything, baby.

More billet. Shiny billet. Who doesn't love billet?

That's the thing. I wish I had my desk from home. There are so many examples. Cast is just different. We've seen the light, too. We know what we're capable of, and we won't settle for anything other than the top tier stuff we're doing right now. You can't see it and then go, oh no, let's not do it that way.

As far as the business goes, what gets you excited about the future?

The business. This next push is going to be good. This next launch. What I really enjoy about this whole thing: look at Power Hour. Two years ago when we first did it, that was a half-court shot. We had no idea how it was going to work or what we were going to do. We were hoping people showed up.

For those who aren't familiar with Power Hour: at Hay Days, you guys take the afternoon of Saturday, and basically if you're anyone at all, you are there. You guys have all of your athletes, and you put this show together. It's basically a show in the middle of the day during Hay Days. And the grounds at Hay Days are huge. How many people did you guys have stacked up in your area this year?

I can't even say. A lot. Look at the photos. There were 2,400 people that registered to win the sled, so at least that many.

All in one tiny spot.

But what I am excited about, and that was only a reference point, is this next push. With X Games kind of dwindling off, they cut off the whole snowmobile deal. As an industry we almost lost things to shoot for. You're not going to see me hitting a ramp, but we're trying to give people something to work towards. An end game goal, a motivating factor. Why are you waking up early? Why are you putting in the extra effort? Oh, because this is coming up. I could potentially be in Power Hour. I could potentially join this competition.

And then this guy rolls up with 500 followers that no one really knows about, who's been behind the scenes busting his butt off. We help create a platform where they can showcase their hard work.

An outlet for guys like that. It's a lot of effort to get more than 5,000 followers, to get seen like that.

So they can use our platform to say, hey, look at the hard work I put into getting to where I am right now. Anybody doing that hard work is excited for the next step, too. But it's hard to do the whole package: being a good rider, shooting good content, presenting all that content, getting it all together. There are a couple of guys who can do it, which is crazy, but it's hard to do. So let us continue to push on these platforms. Let us showcase. Let us help you do what you're doing, because that's what we're passionate about. That's what gets us excited, especially these events. And then hopefully get some money going in the right direction and help these guys keep doing what they've been doing. Money makes the world go around. It's just the reality of it. Especially these snowmobiles. They're not getting any cheaper, people. And 10K is what Power Hour was this year. You guys are going to hear pretty soon about the next one.

Okay, let me back up. You're assuming a lot of things, big fella. You just threw that out. 10K is what Power Hour was. You guys literally gave away $10,000.

To the winner of the competition. The best video.

And the competition had six sledders and content creators?

Six. Shout out to Boondock Nation, Jack and Dylan. We do this together with them. It'd be very hard otherwise.

So who handpicked these content creators and athletes?

The first time, it was us. This is a big question, and it gets complicated. Nowadays the four founding fathers who helped us put on the first event are helping us choose. What creators do we need to get out here, get on the platform and get eyeballs on this year? There's a voting process, and then Backwoods gets one dedicated choice and Boondock Nation gets one dedicated choice. It's still very much developing.

But basically you had six riders out there. They put together a short film, a couple of minutes, and everyone got to watch them live during Power Hour, and there was $10,000 on the line. We had Sled Wyo. We had them in our booth. They shared a booth with us at Hay Days. And for any of those guys, that's significant. If they just put that into equipment, that's a game changer.

100%. That's a game changer.

The other thing is, when you go to our booth, that's a different scene. If you haven't been there, come on by. Here we are in the big four. Our neighbors are Ski-Doo, Lynx, Polaris, Arctic Cat, Yamaha, and here we are, boom, Backwoods. And if you look around, what do you see? You see a bunch of riders that work with us, those Power Hour guys, on 8 foot tall printouts that I personally designed and put together for them. We print out big cards, nice thick paper, front and back. We're trying to push these guys and advertise for them. That's really what the whole thing is. So not only is there the money, it's a full production for these guys.

And I think what's special about what you guys are doing is that other creators out there are now seeing this and saying, I need to step my game up so I can be one of those riders who gets selected. I want to be on that TV next year.

I don't know how many times I heard that. I was so fired up. I'm filming just for this next year. And I'm like, man, that feels good. That right there is what I'm interested in creating. More of that. We're coming into the season right now, and I'm going to start putting this together. It changes the way you look at the entire season, all of a sudden, because you have something to shoot for. There's that end game goal, that reason. Other people have their own goals and reasons why they do things, but now you can have an additional one. Or maybe now you have one.

And already we're getting, oh, we already did this, we're doing that, we're going to do this. People are pumped. And who knows. Look at what we've done. I remember when I told the guys, all right, listen, I'm buying a 16-foot television. And the guys are like, what are we going to do with that?

That's a big TV.

And that was before. Now we've got not only a 16-foot, but a 22-foot. We've got a bunch of these TVs now, and those are ours. Those are Backwoods televisions.

It's pretty cool to see what it's turning into.

It's been a treat to watch, I'll tell you that. It's really impressive.

And just wait for what's up next. You cut me off there.

Well, what's next? But wait, there's more.

I can't talk too much about it, but there's a handful of guys. Now I feel like it's the proving grounds. You look at the crowd we just put on. People are starting to look at me a little differently. They don't look at me like I'm that crazy anymore. I think we've been able to take something that was a wild idea and make it happen. And it's like, well, I've got a couple more wild ideas.

I can't say too much, because there's a lot of work that goes into it, but we're starting to surround ourselves with the guys who are good at what they do. Not just good, but the best. And when you do that, that's when stuff really happens. Look what we can do as individuals. Think about what we can do together as a team. This year you're going to see some crazy stuff. Just like the first Power Hour, cut us some slack, let us figure it out. But you will see something happen during this season. We probably won't showcase it until later on, but you'll hear about it.

This episode will air probably in late December.

We need riding conditions for what we're going to do next. It's going to depend on conditions. We need good snow, we need the right setup. There are a lot of moving parts. It might be something you wouldn't see until it becomes the hype for next year. Then again, just like Power Hour, you're going to see it, and the wheels are going to start turning again. And instead of just one, there's going to be two. It'll be legit this year. And we're talking big money now. 20K payouts, 25K payouts. You're going to see one this year, and then two, three the year after, and then it's going to slowly develop into something that's going to be really big.

That's fun. Well, if the snow comes early, maybe we'll get a little teaser before this episode comes out. Did you hear that, Tristan? We need a teaser.

So let's bring it back just a little bit. We went to the future, and we'll hang out in the future for a little bit. We've got a couple of things I think we can talk about that are kind of fun, stuff that's new to us. We got presented to an organization, the Revelstoke Snowmobile Club, up in Canada.

Stoked on this one.

And this is just a little fun. It's not a $30,000 grand prize finale thing.

No, but this is very cool. This is a start.

So if you are sledding in Revelstoke this season, in the Boulder parking lot there's going to be a little treat there. I don't think we're disclosing exactly what's going to be there, but let's just say it's being created right now.

She's a beauty.

It's very neat. It's being created right now, and you'll probably see some teaser stuff popping out shortly.

We probably ought to tease some people.

Hey, can somebody get me a sweatshirt? It's freezing.

What size, man? Large. Stand up straight. There we go. See, everybody claps. Thank you very much, Pops.

But yeah, it'll be fun. I think it'll be a nice addition.

Well, that's one of the things about working together now. You're one of the guys who gives me a call every now and then with a crazy idea, and I'm like, yeah, absolutely, I'd love that. It's very nice to have that. I give you credit for the ideas you have, and that's why it was just a no-brainer for me. Again, look at what you can do alone. Think about what we can do together.

It is nice to have other people coming at us with cool, innovative design ideas that nobody's thinking about or doing.

It goes both ways, of course.

One thing that ties product to product directly: one thing we're working on right now back home is that you guys sent us all of your colors.

Yeah, we had Ty in the shop do up some powder coat samples.

So we're going to test those and match them up. Because we get customers all the time saying, hey, I just got the Plum Crazy Backwoods parts. Which color on your site matches the best?

We have so many colors. Polaris has got like 24 or 25 colors of them, and then they come out with the next model year.

Please be all last year's colors. And then, oh, they did blue again. That's not just blue. It's sky blue, it's octane blue. There are so many blues.

Polaris has five different blues that we have.

There are more. You can't match them all.

But that'll be one thing you'll start seeing slowly rolling out. We're going to try to be better at matching colors up.

The color match is awesome.

So that's fun and exciting.

Okay, you guys ready for this? I don't know if you made it this far down the page. I'm hoping you didn't.

I browsed it.

Like I said, you guys are some of the best in the industry at attracting the right people to work with. Athletes, pros, ambassadors. You've got a slew. So these questions are going to be catered toward those athletes.

That's going to be fun. We may have a couple of them here. We've got some hitters here right now.

We've got Brett here.

I don't know who all is out there. Chase, Austin, Stevo.

I want to be careful.

So here's the first one. If you could be any one of your athletes for one day, who would you be?

For one day. That's funny. Well, I'll tell you who I wouldn't be right now. I wouldn't be Scott Heyer, God love him, with those broken ankles right now. Poor guy. Sorry, Scott. I wouldn't be Brett either. He's limping around. But that boot's coming off soon. He's doing good. That's a tough one. There are so many good ones. But I'm going to have to say it'd be hard not to want to be Caleb. Come on. If I could ride like that for one day, I'd be styling. Are you kidding me?

That is a tough question. I feel like I had a good answer. Muskoka's got a pretty good setup.

Oh yeah, what's he doing today?

For a day? I'd probably be running an excavator, driving a speed boat. Oh, you know who I'd be? I would be Sam Peterson. You know why? Because I want to be a cowboy. Picture this. Set the mood. Here we are, galloping along, riding a real horse. A cow's loose, we're wrangling a cow. Your cell phone rings. Who is it? It's Keith. What are you doing? Nothing, just tying up this cow real quick. Get in the truck, we're going freaking mountain biking. Okay. And then you're off, and you bump into a bunch of other people who are just awesome. I think that's the guy right there. Sam. Cowboy.

He's a solid dude.

Okay, we'll keep going. If you had to guarantee yourself a victory in a wrestling match, and you had to pick one of the athletes you work with, who are you picking?

Well, I'm going to pick him, because I know I'm going to take him. I'm going to make you squeal like a piggy. Jeez, that's a tough one. See, that's when Caleb jumps in for me. I'm going to wrestle you later, Caleb.

I don't believe I can take him, no.

Wait, I said guaranteed win.

Oh, geez, a guaranteed win. Who do I want to wrestle? I don't think of them like that.

Well, I'm forcing you to right now.

Are you a sponsored rider? Technically you are. I'll wrestle you.

Hey, come on. None of that. Guaranteed win.

I don't know. We're going to have to come back to that one.

If you were brand new to snowmobiling, never been, who would you choose to be your mentor for the day? Who would you want to go out with for the first time to teach you the ropes?

Oh, jeez. I'll tell you, there are a lot of people I wouldn't want to. It really depends on how many steeps I get. When I went out to Revy, if we're talking sponsored riders, you're right, we do have a lot of them. That was the most hospitable trip I've ever had. Jason McMurray and Deryk.

Oh, they're solid, dude.

And here I am, and I can just see it in their eyes. They're going, what are you doing? The pin and wiggle does not work in Revy. 20 feet of snow. But I'll tell you what, the pin and wiggle works here. And they're like, just stop. And I'm like, listen, just leave me alone, I got this one. I felt like I was new to snowmobiling when I got out there. They took care of me, they helped me out so much. So the Freerider Filmz crew. That's broad, but there are guys who laugh, and that's good, you need that. Jason and Deryk, I'll take them both. And you know their friends are going to show up, too, so it's a power pack.

Love it. Ryan hasn't done that in a while. Getting ready for next year?

I need to get up there. Bad. This year, multiple trips.

We weren't thinking too good about the lighting here, were we? We'll roll. You guys are familiar with the show Survivor?

Absolutely. I used to watch it all the time.

All of your athletes are on Survivor. Who would be the first one voted off the island?

What's the strategy? It depends on their current condition, I guess.

Knowing personalities and how people are. They are literally playing against each other, and they know each other. It's not like they're just showing up as strangers.

That's a tough one. Your questions are hard.

I think I could have fun with that. Imagine if they actually did that. Wait, are we competing against them? Are we in Survivor with them?

You guys aren't.

It's a good thing, because I'm going to win that.

You're just watching, and you're like, oh, he's going to be the first one off, for sure. Or she.

I got nothing. I think Muskoka, maybe.

Because he's too nice.

Everyone's going for him.

But that's why this boy is going to win, too. He's not the weakest link in the mountains, for sure, but on an island full of other riders, I don't know. He'd build his own little compound. You see those steps he shoveled for me out at Jackson? So they wouldn't want to get rid of him, because he'd build a small colony.

But that's also a threat.

I forgot about this guy. Kooz. I'll wrestle you. Come over here. You want to wrestle? Absolutely. He's my guy. If I could beat this guy at wrestling, I would. Chris Coosemans.

This is what happened 2 hours ago. What is on that pizza? Pepperoni and peppers coming through and feeding us. Look at that. Landed right on the corner.

That's a great question, though, because honestly, that's actually what our plan is for this year. 30K payout.

We just spoiled it, right?

It's Naked and Afraid. In the snow.

That actually would be a pretty rad thing. It wouldn't be an island. Take everybody out of their element.

There's going to be a payout.

At least we know one industry would be extremely involved. The powersports industry would be popcorn watching. Well, I thought we'd just throw a couple of fun questions in there for you guys. I know they're a little tough. I didn't give you much warning, but I thought, I wonder what these guys will say.

This is how we end every podcast, with these two questions. The first one: you have a brand new sled. What are the three aftermarket mods you're going to make to that machine? And I'm going to spice it up, because most people are saying bumpers. I'm going to change the rules on you guys. Wraps don't count, and bumpers don't count either. No Backwoods products.

Oh man. That sled's not going to survive.

Remember when you didn't have a front bumper? Forever.

What's going on here, Chet, bud? So you want three aftermarket mods. Honestly, I haven't dabbled with them at all, if I can't do bumpers or wraps. I've never been into performance sleds.

I can't do bumpers, I can't do wraps. I ain't riding.

It's going to be a tough time. The insurance company's going to hate me. But I'll roll with it. None of my products. I would do shocks. Aftermarket shocks, or have the shocks done. Dial the suspension up a little bit. I think that would be number one. Number two, I would probably do some clutching.

Spice it up a bit.

They make so much power now, and we're at sea level, so we make all the power. So clutching, so it's more responsive and snappy. I like that snappy bottom end, more playful. Number three, you know what I really liked? I had an SLP can with a muff pot bracket cooker, all built into one unit.

A muff pot. Is that a mod?

It is.

We've got a lot of hot pots for you, 40% off, see the description in this episode. I've got a crap load of them. That was natural. That was clean.

Honestly, a hot lunch on the hill hits different.

Totally. An easy thing we do, and this is super easy, you guys are cooking up gourmet stuff, but if you want something easy, just throw a Hot Pocket in there. Boom, game over.

We like little smokies, those are pretty good. We'll do some red hot dogs, maybe.

Red snappers. You've got to have a snapper.

Okay, so we've got your three. Shocks, some clutching and a hot pot.

For me it's kind of funny, because I used to deck my sleds out. I'd really get into the colors and the wraps and cut my own stickers and do this and do that. Honestly, nowadays I could just hop on a sled and be perfectly happy, as long as I have what I need to be comfortable and to do what I'm about to go do. That's really what a lot of our products do. They prepare me for that, because I'm going to try like hell to get to where I'm thinking we're going to go, and I don't know what's going to happen to the sled along the way.

So if I can't do any of the stuff we offer, which nowadays is just about everything that pertains to that mission of going wherever I'm going to go, I'm going to bring a tow strap. A pull strap.

Here we go. Is that technically a mod?

All right, fine.

If you only come up with two, we'll count it.

Chet has had some interesting tow strap ideas over the years, too. We won't go down there.

I like storage. I like having what I need, because when it gets deep, I don't want anybody to help me. I'm fine. I'll be good. So I've got my Milwaukee saw in the back. I need a good storage bin to keep stuff in, because who knows? Something's going to snap. I'm going to end up somewhere I don't want to be, or someone's going to end up somewhere they don't want to be, and I've got the little doohickey to help out. So a good dry storage. Some kind of rack going on there. A tunnel bag. I can't believe you took away my pull strap. After that, I don't know. Everything I want, I built.

I think that's how we end that question right there. Everything I want, I build.

It was hard to pick other things.

All right, last question. You ready? What's one thing that most of the people who are going to be watching this don't know about you? That dirty little secret. What is that one thing?

I should have thought about this one. Well, then everybody's going to know.

That's the point. We're going to let them know right here.

It's getting a little chilly, isn't it? The shivering over here.

I'm just bouncing here to stay warm.

Why didn't I get to this one?

That's the very last thing on the sheet. That's probably why. I could have done you a solid and given you a little heads up.

I don't know. I guess I've got kind of a cool one. I wouldn't call it dirty, but I don't drink alcohol. It's been 12 years now.

That is extremely unique.

Yeah, gave it up.

We definitely had some great drinking times together, for sure.

That was a long time ago.

It sounds like that's probably a story for another day.

We'll tell that one later. So that would be mine. Unless you follow me directly, you wouldn't know.

That's cool. We'll count that one for sure.

This is funny. I don't know. I'm probably diving into learning a little bit about myself. I'm a pretty easygoing guy. You really can't upset me, I just go with the flow. I don't have to plan anything, I can just roll with the punches. But I have these weird things that just bug the heck out of me. There are a couple, but I hate the sound of dogs drinking water.

That is super annoying.

Go listen to a dog drinking water. Why won't you make the sound?

I'm not making the sound. It's horrible.

Their tongue and the water slapping. I think my dog is just really loud at it.

No, all dogs do that.

Mine are bad.

We're going to have to see if we can overlay that in here somewhere.

I'll record it and send it to you. Someone else has got to have this, too.

I don't have a dog, but I can visualize it and hear it in my head.

Do you have any animals?

I have nine chickens.

You've got eggs on eggs.

They produce for about half the year, actually. From about November until March or April they hardly lay any eggs. I don't put any artificial light out for them, so that's kind of my fault. And a cat.

I used to have chickens, but my daughter wanted a cat.

Secrets are fun. Okay, so that was yours. Dogs drinking water.

That's such a dumb one. That was what you thought of? You could have said something else.

Everyone's going to know now. You're going to go to Power Hour next year and everyone's going to be there with a dog dish, drinking water.

Well, gentlemen, we've cruised right along. We're over 60 minutes now.

Wow, time flies when you're having fun. The night is young.

It is. Tonight's a good night here. You're taking us across the creek, and you guys told me that's dangerous.

You ain't going to bed early tonight. Not that you did last night. The Backwoods army's over there. You're in good hands.

I was telling Chet, I don't know if I was dreaming this, but I could hear you outside the trailer all night, and he was probably four or five campers down.

I am the voice of the people. Listen, I'm surprised I still have a voice. We just got off the freestyle event over there, and it's not easy.

Okay, once again, we'll remind everybody. These gentlemen are gracious enough that we are giving away a $1,000 Backwoods gift card.

Make it 1,500.

What? 1,500? Stevo's like, what?

It's all right, Steve. Do you want to make it 2,000? 2,000. That's going to get the people going. Two people. Two $1,000 gift cards. We'll pick two of you.

Two of you, $1,000 in product each. Wow, that's going to be rad. So all you've got to do, wherever you're watching this, we're going to try our darndest to get that link in the bio or the description of the video, wherever you're watching or listening. Just go there, drop your name, drop your email.

Jump in. That's all you've got to do. Get with our people.

And 2 weeks from when you're watching this, we'll have two winners. This probably won't be official, but I'm going to ask you a question about this podcast, so make sure you listen to the whole thing.

You better answer it.

All right, thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.

Thank you.