Getting a four-wheeler for your teenager takes more than just putting out the chunk of cash it takes to buy it.  When you put a big bow on that ATV to have it under the Christmas tree or to give to him or her for a birthday gift, there is a lot of preparation you must do for this moment and plenty of parenting work to be done before you cut that youngster loose with such a powerful machine.

Many of the biggest names in four-wheeler manufacturing produce models of ATVs that are targeted at the youth market.  A four-wheeler that is designed for a teenager is not the same as the one you have parked in the garage that you use for your work or recreational needs.  For one thing, a youth ATV must be built at a power level that can be handled by a youngster.  You don’t want to put the same level of power in the hands of a young person that you can handle as an adult.  Not only is that a recipe for the machine getting away from the young person, that much power can give a teenager an illusion that they can do more than they should take on.

Also, be aware of the fit of the four-wheeler to your youngster’s size.  To operate an ATV, the youth should be able to easily manage the steering and other controls and to access the readings that they need to drive their ATV responsibly.  This may call for getting some measurements before you give the vehicle to your youth.  But better to get them in on the surprise than to get them an ATV that is not comfortable for him or her to operate.  This is both an ease of use issue and a safety issue.

Safety is the number one issue any parent will have with giving a powerful machine like a four-wheeler to their young person.  Naturally, along with the ATV, you will give to your youth the proper headgear and other safety equipment they must have to operate the ATV correctly.  But gear is not all there is to safety.  The teenager must be aware that when they take control of that powerful four-wheeler, the fun of the freedom and speed of the ATV is also a considerable danger to him or her. 

So it is a good idea to enroll your teen in some safety lessons in how to correctly operate the vehicle.  A few weeks of well-taught safety lessons may be the difference between having good, safe fun with that ATV and an accident, which could ruin the four-wheeler and perhaps cause injury to your child.  Any investment you can make in the ATV and in training for your youth is well worth avoiding that kind of nightmare.

Things You Should Know Before Buying 4 Wheelers Parts

Ohiyo!

Hello again from the Far East on the West Coast, and greetings from the DOJO. This week, before I get in to the nuts and bolts of the treadmills and the ellipticals I work on, I’m going to start with a quick guide to how to choose a treadmill — well, how to choose a residential / home grade treadmill. Choosing a commercial treadmill tends to be a bit easier — go Star Trac, Matrix, Landice or Life Fitness and, in spite of their great ellipticals, avoid Precor treadmills. Precor is a great company, they just don’t quite have treadmills down as well as the other companies. With the commercial treadmills it’s kind of like choosing between a BMW, a Mercedes and a Lexus. It’s all about bells and whistles more than performance…they’re all great machines and we’ll talk about them another time.

Home treadmills are a tough sea to navigate for most buyers — there are so many different brands and they all look alike to outsiders. Luckily, over the past 20 or so years, I’ve had to repair just about every treadmill ever made. In other words, my pain will be your salvation!

My first piece of advice is: avoid anything and everything from Icon Health and Fitness. They’re the manufacturer of the units you’ll find at places like Sears — nothing against Sears, but the treadmills they sell tend to be on the lower end of the quality scale. Their treadmills seem to have specs that are too good to be true for their cost and, truth be told, they are. The old proverb, “you get what you pay for” comes in to play with them. Small motors with high RPMs to give them a perceived higher horsepower (most of their motors should really be rated at under 1.5 HP regardless of what they tell you — a motor the size of a soda can should not be powering a full sized treadmill!), lots of plastic pieces, tiny rollers, and generally unstable machines are par for the course for the Icon brands like Proform, Weslo, Healthrider and Image. Just stay away from them! There are better treadmills even at the more affordable prices that Icon tempts the unlearned consumer with.

On with translating the arcane lore that is treadmill purchasing for the lay person.

Let’s start with the motor. The first thing you want to do is make sure the motor is rated with “Continuous Duty.” Any sales person or manufacturer who gives you a “Peak” rating is trying to sell you a bag of magic beans. Peak is best described as the maximum a motor will perform at before it breaks down. What’s more imporant is: how the heck is that motor going to perform when you’re actually using it? Another thing a shady salesperson might mention is that a common home circuit (120v/15amps) will only let you run about 2.5 HP and any motor larger than that is a waste of money. Technically that is true (about the amps vs. HP, not the waste of money), but the larger motors will tend to last longer as they are not running at the higher RPMs of a smaller motor. And, if nothing else, the larger the motor, the smoother the “ride.” A bigger motor will allow you to run or walk on it without slipping.

The next thing to look at is the size of a treadmill’s rollers. The bigger the rollers, the longer your belt will last and the better the running experience.

Next, and this is my favorite thing — especially when recommending cardio equipment to my in-laws — the warranty. Like anything else, the better the warranty the more piece of mind you will have. The 5 year parts warranty on Spirit treadmills, for example, is one of the best in the business. For me, the more faith a manufacturer has in its own product (i.e. the warranty), the more faith I have in that product. Of course, doing repairs I absolutely love the lower end warranties as it means more paying work for me!

What’s next? The weight and stability of the machine. There is nothing worse than getting on a treadmill and having it move back and forth, or shake, or, even worse, creak as you run on it. The heavier the unit the longer it will last. If you’re used to running on a treadmill at your local gym and then get on most home units, you’ll immediately notice the difference. You don’t want to be running around on something that feels like it is going to fall apart now do you? Don’t answer, that was a rhetorical treadmill question.

The tread and the deck are where most problems for treadmills happen. When the friction from your running builds up between the deck and the tread, the badness begins. Stick with the 4-ply belts/treads that help to reduce the amount of friction, and look at units with reversable, phenolic wax coated decks. Reversable decks let you flip over your running surface to use the opposite side when the original wears down. It’s like having a free second deck if you wear out the first one.

Programs. Don’t be fooled by this. Most people only wind up using 3-4 programs. If the treadmill has 20, that’s cool, but you’ll rarely use them. If you do heart rate training, then heart rate control is great. If not, it’s just an extra you’ll never use…like the clock you’ve never set on your VCR.

Speed and Incline are worth talking about. Most treadmills can go up to about 10 miles per hour and a 10 degree incline. Don’t let speed or incline become a deciding factor unless you’re doing a lot of high speed or high incline training. Obviously, electronically controlled speed and incline are the way to go. If those feature are manual just move on.

Finally, test out the shock absorbtion. You want to make sure you aren’t running on a hard surface. This is a “feel” thing more than a “scientific” one. If the deck is bouncy, move on. If the deck feels like running on concrete, move on. If the deck moves from side to side, move on. You want to find a deck that feels good, with just enough give and little to no lateral motion.

Beyond that fans, speakers, cup holders, magazine racks and even television sets on the treadmill’s console are all just icing on the cake. It’s better to get a good treadmill without a fan or TV and spend $50 to buy your own than to get a crappy, fully loaded treadmill which will eventually just become an expensive coat rack for dirty clothes.

Now, I know I alread typed “finally” but there is one last piece to consider: PRICE. You can only get what you can get but don’t be fooled into buying a lemon. There are decent (and some downright Great) treadmills at just about every price point. I’ll go over some of the best, at least in my experience, treadmills in the under $1000 range in the next week.

Don’t despair, there is a good treadmill out there you can actually afford

If you are lucky enough to own a luxury sport utility vehicle, you might have chosen the BMW X5. Families enjoy the comfort, power and safety that comes equipped in every X5. Its all-wheel drive system can take you wherever you need to go in whatever road conditions the weather dishes up. No matter where you drive, be it to school to drop the kids off, shopping, or on long road trips, one feature of your X5 that is sure to get a lot of use is your car’s outstanding audio system. An important part of that stereo system is the BMW subwoofer. An X5 subwoofer can make your digital audio files shine.

Speakers in a BMW subwoofer consist of several component parts, including the various drivers and crossovers contained in some type of speaker enclosure. There are usually three types of drivers involved, tweeters to pick up the high register frequencies that produce high-pitched sounds, woofers to take on the low frequencies and their resultant low-pitched sounds, and midrange drivers that excel in delivering all of the sound produced by the midrange signals. Crossovers divide the entire electronic signal recorded on your mp3 or CD into narrower frequencies to which the drivers have been designed to respond, so that you will be able to hear the full range of sound that is on the recorded media.

The X5 subwoofer uses drivers whose specialty is delivering the low end of the sound scale, the bass and sub-bass sounds. You attach a subwoofer to your speaker to improve the low bass’s resolution. Some of these sounds are so low that the human ear cannot hear them, but nevertheless humans can actually feel those sounds. You might have noticed this effect the last time you attended a live rock concert with a bassist performing.

These dynamic subwoofers are often installed in the back seat area or trunk of a car, such as your BMW X5. Care needs to be taken when turning the volume up when subwoofers are in action in your vehicle, because hearing loss can result from prolonged exposure at too high a volume.

Some people go for adding tactile transducers to their vehicles as well. When the low bass sounds go down so low that you cannot hear them, you can feel them, and that feeling is sensitized by the use of tactile transducers. They are connected to the seat in the car and the amplifier in the speaker. The sound coming from the driver is carried through the bones of your body and eventually up to your ears.

If you like rock music with a pounding bass line, or classical music that features tympani, then a subwoofer might be in your car stereo’s future.