On the trail with Can-Am’s latest Defender side-by-sides

The Ride

Once we all got suited up with gloves and helmets (safety first, folks), Steve jumped behind the wheel of the two-seater and I hopped in as his passenger. Rachel, Drew and Jason got in the Defender Max, while Allie drove her own 2023 Defender X MR with Brian as her passenger.

With Allie in the lead, we started off on a hard-packed gravel road littered with deep potholes, which the machines handled easily, even at speed. After 10 or 15 minutes, we pulled off onto a trail running through a stand of cypress. Allie was still in the front, with Drew, Rachelle and Jason following and Steve and I bringing up the rear. The trail was a mixture of dirt and sand, and Allie had mentioned we should avoid any dark mud, as it’s hard to tell how deep it might be.

We came to such a spot, and Allie just zipped through it so Drew followed but got bogged down halfway through. The wheels started spinning and flinging mud everywhere, and it soon became clear the machine wasn’t going anywhere. The mud had the consistency of wet concrete.

No worries. It just meant we got to test out the winch. Unfortunately, there was only one accessible tree, and it was at an odd angle off to the left of the vehicle. We gave it a shot anyway, and made some progress, but then the machine started getting pulled into the bank and embedded deeper. After a few different attempts, and plenty of head-scratching, we finally figured out a solution. First, we parked the two other machines on solid ground in front of the stuck machine. Next, we connected their winch cables to the hook on the stuck machine’s cable. We split up into two groups and all got in the vehicles, for extra weight, then Allie and I hit the winch switches at the same time. From start to finish, it took close to an hour of digging and winching, but we eventually got it out and were on our way. Nothing like a challenge to bring the team together!