It took until mid-January to finally get enough snow to finally get the 2024 Summit Adrenaline Edge out of the garage for the first time. We didn’t get crazy amounts of snow, but that was enough to justify a first backcountry ride of the season. I was particularly excited about this ride since the snowmobile I’m reviewing this year was my favourite Ski-Doo 2024 snowmobile during the last Snow Shoot. Even if it’s a lower-end model in the mountain lineup, everyone on the team kept raving on how they loved it last spring.
This year, I get to review the Edge variant of the new Summit Adrenaline model. Actually, this isn’t technically new as the Adrenaline is basically the new name for the former SP model, and the Edge becomes a variant of the Adrenaline rather than its own model. Nonetheless, this is an extremely compelling package, combining some amazing features of the higher-end Summit models while staying at a more accessible price range and being available in-season. Let’s discuss how it translates in the snow.
Gen5 Platform
We might sound like a broken record at this point, but the Gen5 platform is such a massive improvement over Gen4. That is especially true for mountain snowmobiles. It really starts as soon as you step on the snowmobile. It’s almost surreal how close the legs are from each other with the narrower chassis and the virtually invisible seat. It truly makes jumping from one side of the snowmobile to the other easy.
The other thing I noticed before even starting to ride is how comfortable the handlebar is with the smaller diameter. It makes me feel like I have a much better grip on the snowmobile. This makes the handling way more precise. I found myself wondering if a slightly smaller width would make the handling even better. I think this comes from muscle memory from doing mountain bike last summer. I’ll keep an eye open on if I get used to it or still am curious about wanting a smaller width handlebar.
Cockpit
I know some people really dislike it, but I absolutely love the minimal layout of the cockpit on the Summit Adrenaline Edge snowmobiles. I know there’s a market for bigger screens with GPS, Bluetooth and so much more, but I personally prefer to have a more minimal display to focus more on the riding part of my day. The display shows me the engine temperature, the gas left in the tank and the speed. I simply don’t need more than that.
However, even on days when the snow isn’t particularly deep, the display gets covered with snow constantly. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, except that it’s very hard to clean the edges. The issue is that this is exactly where I can see how much gas I have left.
Furthermore, the controls offer very bad haptic feedback. The buttons on the display are simply impossible to detect whether the click went through when wearing gloves. This comment also applies to the Shot/reverse button. I feel like I never really noticed that before because of how amazed I was at the Shot system. However, now that it’s become more common, I realize that the feedback to this button is very poor.
Handling of the 2024 Summit Adrenaline Edge
This is where the Summit with the Gen5 platform really shines, no matter which flavour you are riding. It is so much easier to initiate maneuvers compared to the previous generation of the chassis. When really used to it (and with proper snow conditions), the smallest countersteer with a small weight transfer is often enough to get on edge and navigate in the powder snow. What blew my mind is how fast the Summit gave me back confidence in riding. I mean, the last time I rode was like nine months prior…
There isn’t a ton of snow yet, but I still was able to pull off one or two small sidehills. The precision and the stability of sidehilling are simply not comparable to how it was on the Gen4 platform. I felt as if I could sidehill for days … until I saw a boulder and decided to get back on the flat surface.
Ice Buildups
Even if we didn’t ride in deep-snow conditions, I noticed some ice buildups on the tunnel. It started when I was hearing the track make a terrible noise. When I stopped, I noticed a pretty significant ice buildup on the tunnel. It starts from the upper wheels and spreads all over to the back of the tunnel.
To conclude: excited for more!
This sums up my first impressions of the Ski-Doo Summit Adrenaline Edge 154 2024. This wasn’t technically my first impressions as this snowmobile looks similar to the Summit X we reviewed last year, and we got to spend some quality time on the Summit Adrenaline Edge during the last Snow Shoot. However, I’m just as excited to put miles and shred in the powder snow on it. I’m very excited to share my longer-term thoughts during my review at the end of the season. In the meantime, I want to take a second to thank Ski-Doo for allowing us to ride this amazing snowmobile for the season.
