The more you get out riding, the more you'll notice how many do ride two-up on "one-up only" machines. Everybody doesn't sell those add on "rest seats" for solo riders!! I would say the thing you need to be the most careful of is climbing a steep hill. With the extra weight of a second person on a one-up machine usually behind the rear axle there is more risk of going over backwards on a steep climb.

I did the complete opposite of what Jake suggests, because I'm not known for being very bright, and ended up with one of the biggest two-up machines for our first atv... an Outlander Max 800! Now while we'd never had atv's before, I've had motorcycles & dirtbikes since I was a kid and have actually taken off road classes, including an atv class, before. I tend to believe that one should buy a little bit bigger machine than they think they need right off the bat provided they have the maturity and training to go along with it. An 800 is certainly a monster and deserves a healthy bit of respect but MAN is it fun (and carries two with gear effortlessly)!! We wouldn't have gone that big had it not been for my wife finding one of those deals you just can't pass up online.

As a new rider I've been a little frustrated at how hard it is just to get maps of some places let alone GPS tracks. The map issue is slowly getting better. As far as GPS tracks go I'm not holding my breath. Clubs that I've spoken to are not real interested in sharing the raw GPS data. I guess I can't blame them though. I can think of a million reasons why I would be very leary of letting my track data go public. Although in truth it's not like we all couldn't go make our own tracks, combine forces, and make our own maps.

Did someone say group ride??