how hard do you wheel?

[bull]

Originally Posted by Nay

There's a difference between difficult and stupid. The dents come from stupid.

That is a silly comment. A lot of dents come from trying difficult lines. Not just being stupid..but I guess you have to try those hard lines to find that out..

Or maybe it is just different wheeling in the NW?

I'm actually proud of this dent. It save our 80 from rolling down a very steep hill while we were off camber..

[D'Animal]

I wheel as hard as my Gears in my Rears allows as well as my winch allows.

[Nay]

Originally Posted by bull

That is a silly comment. A lot of dents come from trying difficult lines. Not just being stupid..but I guess you have to try those hard lines to find that out..

Or maybe it is just different wheeling in the NW?

I'm actually proud of this dent. It save our 80 from rolling down a very steep hill while we were off camber..

I have dents - they come from doing the stupid difficult lines that your spotters are warning you about

My tongue and cheek point was that seeing pretty rigs vs. beat up rigs is more a function of the owner's "know when to quit because I care about my rig" than it is about running difficult trails or not.

I don't run trails that are so difficult that they are damage mandatory in a rig the size of an 80 - I run trails that are moderate if you take every bypass and diffcult to entry level hardcore if you don't bypass. I don't wheel to take bypasses, and my few real dents have all come from real moments of driver error where I pushed it to far. My picture leaning against the tree is exactly like yours, except that you drove through and ripped off some goods where we pulled from the side to get it off the tree before coming forward. Otherwise, the size of the main dent is about the same.

Of course, you poor coastal types are about guaranteed damage in those tight trails. Go to Moab and you can do insane stuff and come home with some dust. You get a dent in Moab using reasonable common sense and chances are you dented 2-3 sides at the same time

[LandCruisers4Life]

I'm not into trashing my vehicles, but I like to wheel. I am not a rock crawler, but if I encounter some rock crawling on a trail, I deal with it and get on with the fun stuff. I have been in some very precarious positions and have run lots of trails over the years without incident but one. That one incident caused a LOT of damage to my FJ40, as it was a roll over at night down a hill. I drove it back up the hill and home afterwards. I continued to drive my bashed up FJ40 for about 4 years before deciding to park it and begin the long process of a restoration. Now we wheel our Rover, and my new FJ I bought a little over a year ago. I've had the new FJ on some pretty rough trails for a stocker, and it performs great. I can hardly wait to start transforming it into the expeditionary vehicle I desire. So you can wheel hard, and dumb, or you can wheel hard and keep your head. I made a mistake years ago, a bad judgement call allowing my ego to get into the way of better judgement. I don't do that anymore. Older, and wiser and more into fun than ego.

[peepers]

love my truck... my wife loves my truck and i dont want to beat it. i wanna keep it straight and so does she... glass 6 roads and easy trails are what make me happy.

[agent orange]

A tree fell on my truck in a hurricane years ago, so the roof has always been a little on the crumpled side, so i really dont care about body damage. I try and keep the doors straight so i can enter and exit, but every panel has taken a shot at least once, and everything at rocker level is trashed.

Im never selling the truck, and i like to follow the minis and 40s on 38s i wheel with. I keep up, i just get tagged and hung up more than they do. Its all in what you want to accomplish. I want to wheel blacks, so i deal with the damage.

[brownbear]

with my trucks they are family rigs, so it's kinda limiting to the adventure. Plus when you get really far from town and are alone it's kinda silly to push things too far.

I use my trucks for long distance bush machines(like a cruiser was made for), so it comes with the territory to take the easier path when the option is there.

[Dirty Toadette]

i like the toad the way she is-- not perfect or afraid of a challenge, but fairly clean and straight. we've gotten some MINOR dents here and there and buff-out-able scratches, but I'd be really bummed if we rolled or flopped her. We tend to keep to the moderate trails with a bit of everything for variety. Overall, she's a family wagon meant for family wheelin' and haulin'.

[dmede808]

I don't "wheel" so much as I "cruise"

I use my truck as an off-road road-trip platform, in a more expedition style of cruising (what the wagons are more suited to IMO). This usually just means forest service roads or desert track. Some minor stream crossings, shallow washes and not too big rocks... but lots of miles of open road with no one around. When your on a solo road trip away from civilization caution is the word of the day and avoiding what most "wheelers" lunge at is what keeps you going

[stuck in GA]

Well when I had my cruiser I drove it hard. Check the pics at the link at the bottom for some examples. Or ask from the people at gsmtr. If you got it wheel it.

[stuck in GA]

Now that i think about it thats why I don't have one today so keep it on the road. Haha just kidding.

[Shahram]

My Cruiser is my Lil' Burro...A burro that covers great distances of very bad terrain with a very strong back and a very comfy saddle and few complaints. If the burro has to go up the big rock to get to the good camp, then the burro goes up the big rock. But I don't point the burro at something the burro doesn't need to climb, especially if the burro might break something. The burro has to get the jefe to the field on Monday morning, or the jefe will lose his job, and the señora will cut off his huevos and feed them to the cerdos.

[Medusa]

Wow, judging from the response so far there are only a few of us on this board who really like to push the envelope with full knowledge that damage is going to occur. Or perhaps there are only a few of us stupid ones left

[pismojim]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Wow, judging from the response so far there are only a few of us on this board who really like to push the envelope with full knowledge that damage is going to occur. Or perhaps there are only a few of us stupid ones left

Even fewer that make it look as easy as you Jack!

Still I'm always reminded of my favorite saying:

"Bring what you got, wheel what you bring."

My love for avoiding dents is second only to my love of the dents I have. Sadly, my dents are getting dents and now I can't remember where I got them. Somewhere along the way I quit counting the little ones. Same for mechanical carnage, things that would have been a major event seem like background noise now.

The rest of you be warned, a long time ago I thought cruising fire roads on 31 ATs was "wheeling".

Wheeling is a process.