Battleduck: Part 3

An Argo is basically a little personal tank. (With a definition like that, how could I not lust for one?) Tanks and dozers steer oddly. On a 6 x 6 Argo, three wheels on one side spin in perfect synchronization with themselves and completely independently of the three wheels on the other side. This is called “skid steer” and it’s pretty common on small heavy equipment such as a “Bobcat”. (BTW: Adding tracks to an Argo is mechanically simple. The only thing you need is a few hours and a wad of money.)

I was ready for a bit of a learning curve and was open to the new experience but holy shit the thing was a hot mess. It handled worse than I could possibly imagine. I was still on pavement and I realize “skid steer” sucks on payment but it felt like I was going to tear the thing in half just trying to get out of its parking spot. After a herky-jerky turn that would make a chiropractor anticipate future revenues, I lumbered down the pavement.

I tried to gracefully head toward the ATV trail but mostly I zigzagged like a drunkard. I had the grace of the helicopter with half of its rotor removed. How bad was it you say? Take a walrus, hit one flipper with a ball peen hammer, feed it two bottles of vodka, kick it in the balls, drop it off a roof, and set it on fire. It’ll still waddle across a parking more gracefully than a 6 x 6 Argo on dry pavement.

I’m sure I’d get better at steering with experience, but what a terrible starting point. Things improved mightily once I got on dirt. At this particular location there was an ATV “ditch trail”. Basically, that means ATV tracks along the road’s shoulder. It was mildly off camber, otherwise pretty flat, and no challenge at all for any ATV. The Argo is short and squat, being off camber doesn’t even bother it.

Every couple hundred yards the “ditch trail” is interrupted by a driveway or whatnot. This means there is a culvert over the ditch and you, the fool driving down the ditch, must climb up over the side of the ditch, cross the driveway, and then clamber back down. Speedy ATVs and hyped up snowmobilers use those natural “ramps” to “get some air” or alternatively “crash”. Since I could barely steer the damn thing, it took me a bit of zigzagging to get up the ramp and then back down but had to admit the Argo was completely unaware of the steep slope. After three or four repetitions I came to a realization: the ATV tracks swoop around the culvert in neat parabolic arcs but who gives a shit? At the next culvert I just drove straight into the ridge just to the side of the culvert, bounced over the driveway, and bounced back into the ditch. What a concept! Steering is a pain in the ass but then again you don’t really need to steer. Sure enough, as soon as I stopped trying to precisely control where the Argo went, the ride calmed down quite a bit. There’s some sort of Zen lesson here but suffice to say people who own Argos can just drive over shit; so why meddle with steering? (This wasn’t a hard-core trail so an ATV could have done about the same thing but it would have been different. Instead of worrying I was bashing an ATV’s delicate front suspension it seemed like an Argo is just built to do that.)

I was anxious to get away from the shoulder of a busy road but instead of turning into a dirt trail it just emptied out in the parking lot of a convenience store. Weird eh? I scooted across at maximum Argo speed and crashed back into the ditch on the other side without carefully looking that it was driveable. I’d only been using an Argo for 10 minutes and I was already plunging down embankments without worrying. I’m not sure what would stop an Argo but so long as nobody’s in the way you get fearless about trying new things.

Eventually I found some dirt trail and (finally!) encountered a smallish log that blocked half the trail. I wasn’t in real forest so that would have to do as a test. I could see how all the ATVs approached the obstacle, shifted to the side of the trail, and gingerly went around. I was already feeling pretty Zen about steering so I just crashed over it. I braced for a terrible impact but all that happened was “boink” and it was over. The Argo is a honey badger on wheels. It don’t give a shit.

Made a wrong turn somewhere and came to a dead end. In a UTV it would take a tight K turn to be headed back out. In an ATV it would take a sloppy K turn to be headed back out. With the Argo I just yanked the handlebars and it pivoted in its own length! I’ve never operated a machine that can turn as tight as an Argo.

Anyone who’s looked at Argos online asks “how fast they go”. There are two answers to this. The first and unavoidable answer is “they go fucking slow”. They have essentially no suspension (save the tires themselves) and “skid steer” does not lend itself to high-speed maneuvers. This leads to the second and more nuanced answer which is “you don’t want to go any faster without a suspension anyway”.

Being a proper test driver, I cracked the throttle all the way and just wound it up. I don’t remember exactly how fast I was going but was probably something like 30 mph. Given the Argo’s steering and suspension it was the equivalent of a Honda Civic going 10,000 mph. Soon I got with the program and slowed down. You simply don’t want to go 50 MPH in an Argo, when you’re sitting in one it’s pretty obvious why.

There are two surprising advantages to this. The first is (I know this is minor) but when I drive my ATV in cold weather the wind makes my eyes water terribly. (I need goggles but always forget them.) This didn’t happen in the Argo. The second advantage is that the motor just has all the juice you ever need. You don’t need to rev it up, you don’t need to wonder what gear you’re in, you don’t need to worry about keeping up momentum in a turn or traction while climbing a hill, and there’s no reason whatsoever to ever care about wind resistance.

I see two disadvantages to the low speed and overall awesome traction. The first is obvious, if you’re on a flat easy trail and you want to get from point A to point B and the distance is large, an Argo will drive you insane. On my last (only!) ride in 2019 I wound up a dozen odd miles from my truck as the sun was setting. I zipped home doing probably 45 mph. In an Argo I’d plod home much slower… or maybe just stop there and build a cabin. I suspect this is self-correcting, you’re not likely to get ridiculously far from your plans in a device that can’t go ridiculously fast in the first place. It’s definitely a relative thing. If ATVs didn’t exist, an Argo wouldn’t feel slow. If an Argo is out among ATVs it’s going to seem slower than it really is.

The second disadvantage is this. The damn thing is so good at crawling over stuff you tend to go find shit to “challenge it”. This could lead to issues.

And it did… more soon.