The Mr. Bean ATV: Part 1

Like all men, I have a moldering old vehicle in my lawn. I’d dearly love to fix it up and return it to former glories. It’ll probably never happen. Like all wives, Mrs. Curmudgeon complains about the junk her husband accumulates, but with a kind heart.

I have a second and weirder moldering old vehicle stashed in a garage. It’s well over 40 years old. We had grand times together two decades ago. It really will be fixed up some day. Or maybe I’ll die first. Hard to say. It’ll be a “restoration” and that’s a very expensive word.

A while ago, I made a mighty effort in that direction. It now starts, runs, and moves under its own power, but it’s still not ready for primetime. It was a setback.

Such is the nature of life. Nobody has time and money to keep treasured devices in usable shape when family and other obligations loom larger. If you’re a retired mechanical genius or you’ve got a budget like Jay Leno you might pull it off… which is why other men envy you. The rest of us muddle through dreaming of “someday when I get that old truck running again”. We take the old jeep or truck on fishing trips, but only in our mind. Most wives understand. They don’t complain too much as their lawn takes on the hue of a junkyard. It’s part of the aging process for the North American Bearded Male. We need to dream.

A few years ago, I started flailing about looking for a smaller bite to chew. I made a few experimental trips with a 20-year-old ATV. It’s too old for such abuse, but the idea took root. I really did have fun.

I have no budget for a shiny new purchase but life is about positivity and dreams. Also, my imagination was fired up by a jovial Canadian with a charming dog (warning: link goes to YouTube channel, and if you have cabin fever the channel will trap you for the rest of the day).

Emporium Outdoors set my mind on the track of Argos and I spent hours pouring over specs and performance mods (despite having no money). After years of resisting the siren song, I test drove one. Links to my brief experience with Battle Duck are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Cliff’s Notes Version: the beast was awesome and so much fun… too much fun… and not cheap. I welded my wallet shut and ran.

Meanwhile, I wound up buying a perfectly logical tractor for snowplowing and homestead work. It does a great job. It’s excellent. It’s…

It’s not a toy.

That’s the problem. I wanted a toy. I’ve been very good. I’ve lived well. I may be broke but I’m not poor. I’m not reeling from cascading bad decisions and wrong turns in life (for which I’m thankful!). Sometimes you need to give yourself a reward. I wanted to gift myself a pure recreation device and figure I can (barely) swing it. My little sailboat is part of this. Hewn of my own hand and done dirt cheap but well built, it’s a dream realized. I love it. Alas, it doesn’t calm the mind in seasons when the lake is ice (like right now).

I’m just too cheap and odd to stride into the ATV shop and sign on the bottom line so I let the idea simmer over a deep dark winter (and later, a second one, and then a third). I wanted something cheap, ideally suited to my odd quirks, and purely for fun. Almost by definition it had to be impractical. A snowmobile or an ATV is fun, in part, because it’s not a handy minivan for grocery getting. My tractor is excellent, but it is not just for fun.

I grump that ATVs and boats and so forth are ostensibly marketed to “families”. The reason being that it’s easier to sell a toy that’s marked up to ten large (or much more!) if you convince the victims of finance that it’s “for the kids”. I’m out of the demographic of the Ken doll shown in the glossy photos. There he is with 2.2 kids and a trophy wife and not one of them is bitching about mosquitoes. I can tell you right now that such a situation has never happened on earth. Also, there’s nary a spot of mud or bit of deer blood on his shiny gadget. They’re all leering with the dopamine smile of actors. It’s a G-rated fake outdoorsman as envisioned by people who’s main exposure to nature is the Sierra Club poster hanging on their cubicle wall.

The upshot is that ATV markets are going against my grain. They’re getting more expensive, heavier, wider, bigger, more powerful, equipped with comfy cabs, laden with safety features and so forth. They’re also shifting to side by sides (SxS). A single man straddling an engine and steering with a handlebar is turning into bucket seats for two with a steering wheel crouched behind a windshield. The throttle is a pedal and optional radios link to Bluetooth. Automatic transmissions, electronically actuated limited slip differentials (not locking), and on-board heat are replacing simple engines and splashing mud. Our society is aging. Society is losing its balls.

Some of the side by sides go full minivan with two rows of seats. Because nothing says fun for dad like little Tommy and Suzy hunched in the back texting on their cell phones about how they’d rather be home. The machines (which are impressive) are marketed showing four burly men in identical camouflage gear happily carpooling to hunting camp. As if men coordinate their outfits before hunting. I can’t even imagine such a thing. I hunt dressed like a yard sale. In my opinion, big game doesn’t sense Real Tree camo versus dirt smeared denim. I usually hunt alone.

The most elaborate rigs can do pretty much anything a Ford Ranger can do (load capacity, towing, and passengers) and in about the same comfort… with about the same payments. It’s rather impressive.

But they are not for me.

I love heat and comfy seats but too much electronics and tonnage turn a toy into a job. I might as well stay in the Dodge. I wanted as much excitement as my aging body could handle and do it without big payments.

And let’s be honest. I don’t need or want a passenger seat. Mrs. Curmudgeon politely wishes to avoid my adventures (which is wise), the kids are grown up, and my dog is dead. I’ll be out there with all of my friends… which means me and a good book. I’m one of the last few humans who doesn’t confuse solitude with lonely. I retain the mental wherewithal to roam nature alone. I intend to ignore the squawking of safety Nazis and sought the machine to take me there. I am not a herd animal and chafe in the yoke of an increasingly conformed world. Someday folks of my ilk will be gone; groups of twenty will need a professional guide to leave paved bicycle trails, but that’s another story.

Man, that’s a dour paragraph. Better cut it off here and finish the rest tomorrow.

A.C.

P.S. Full disclosure; a single short test drive of the cheapest possible Argo convinced me that I love them and they’re uniquely suited to doing dumb things. Owning one would encourage exactly the worst sorts of decisions. Argos seem to crave absolutely stupidly impassible environments. That’s what I mean by too fun. The one I drove was so quirky and weird and unstoppable and funky that I’d go out of my way to find things that challenge it. The price tag chased me away but if money were no option, I’d get one and have all the fun a guy can live through.