Hands up if you’ve ever gotten yourself into enough of a pickle on the trail to need a winch. Yeah, me too. Polaris is making that ordeal a bit more bearable now with a Rapid Rope Recovery system on their Pro HD Winch lineup.
The first of its kind, Polaris is rolling out the Rapid Rope Recovery system, designed to re-spool the rope five times faster than a standard winch. This’ll allow riders to get back to work or back on the trails faster and give their buddies less time to make fun of them. It will come standard on the Pro HD Winch lineup for Ranger, RZR, General, Sportsman and Ace models.
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You read that correctly. In years past the Pro HD Winch lineup was not offered on the Sportsman or Ace. With the introduction of Rapid Rope Recovery, Polaris fixes that oversight.
The company says Rapid Rope Recovery was developed through a rigorous testing process, keeping gear quality and durability as the highest priority. This means the winch shouldn’t strip its teeth at the first sign of a quick re-spool. Equipped with wireless control and an auto-stop feature, the Pro HD winch is intended to be a durable and easy-to-use accessory for off-roaders who find themselves stuck fast in a quagmire.
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In fact, Polaris went through multiple iterations of gear materials to fine tune shifting effort and ensure the gears shift into position correctly every time. Sounds like they busted up a few prototypes during R&D, which is great news. Better for it to fail in the lab than on the trail.
Respooling is handled by way of a wireless remote, as it is helpful for the operator to guide the 50-foot synthetic rope as it retracts itself up on to the winding armature. The company says all this will work in water and mud, a claim we look forward to testing.
Polaris knows a thing or two about winches already, putting that knowledge to good use during the development of Rapid Rope Recovery. The company says the winches are military-approved for their machines, complete with a sealed motor and heavy-duty gears. Tested more than 1,200 times through rigorous max-load pulls, they are also built to withstand negative 20-degree Fahrenheit temperatures and operate fully submerged underwater.
Polaris Pro HD winches are rated to handle 6000 pounds on workhorse Ranger models, half that on the welter-weight Sportsman and Ace machines. The RZR and General lines split the difference. Look for the new winches in dealerships later next month, bearing a $549.99 price tag.