Of all the bantering and heckling that takes place between PWC factions, the long-standing one-upmanship between stand-up and sit-down riders is probably one of the most lively in the watercross family.
Now, that sibling rivalry can transfer from the water to the snow during the off season, as the designers at WideScape continue to advance the Widescape WS250 – a cross between a snowmobile and a snow bike that takes its design cue from the stand up jet ski to provide what at least some winter powersport aficionados call the most active, immersive and challenging fun you can have in the snow.
While the Widescape WS250 stand up snowmobile is not technically new – it was released in February of 2022 – widespread delivery did not begin until December 2023, and it remains a bit of an oddity – regarded by some (many) traditional snowmobilers as nothing more than a toy. But despite what serious snowmobilers call weaknesses of the WS250 – lack of range, horsepower and storage, to name a few – even the most surface-level exploration through the world of Google reviews show that this snow-bound version of a stand-up PWC has a growing fan base – many of them summertime PWC riders in search of off-season fun.
As Mountain Sledder magazine explained in their review of the machine, “The Widescape WS250 is a new concept that, from a visual standpoint at least, is surprisingly perhaps more closely related to the shape of a stand up personal watercraft (aka jet ski) than any other recreational vehicle type. To be clear: we’re not talking about the sit down things you see tourists riding the world over. We’re talking about the radical stand up type of ‘jet ski’ we associate with professional racing, freestyle riding and people who take their PWC seriously.” (see, I told you that rivalry made the transition from water to snow!)
A turning point, it appears, in the acceptance and growing popularity of the WS250 happened about the same time as a review and walkthrough video of the machine by SnowTrax TV’s Luke Lester posted last year.
Besides a mechanical overview of the WS250 (200 pounds, 242cc 4-stroke EFI engine with liquid cooling, continuously variable transmission, Soucy scaled track), Lester covers the similarities, and differences, between a traditional snowmobile and the WS250, and talks about how the stand-up version outperformed his expectations in just about every category.
Check out the SnowTrack TV 1st-ride video and see where you stand in the winter version of the perennial PWC Debate – stand-up or sit-down?
