ATV Speed Question
 

Here's one for you atv folks.

My brother owns 7 acres of basically rolling hill farm land here in Nor Cal.
He's been beating up a lawn tractor (and himself) every few years dragging around his tow-behind mower platform. The land has been disked a couple times so the no-suspension ride of the lawn tractor is horrendous.....along with cracking and breaking everything off the tractor after a while.

He asked me about the Chinese ATV's and how I thought they'd work. I said that I thought a full-sized 150 ranch-style quad should be adequate but I wouldn't burn up a CV trans dragging it around at mowing speed.....or am I incorrect in this assumption?

So, you guys who have the manual clutch/shifting quads....do you think that first gear would be slow enough for this? He only knocks it down a few times a year, so it's not like he can cost-justify a used, 'real' tractor.

You can always gear the atv down more. How about renting a real tractor/mower to do the job?

I wouldn't even rent. I'd ask a neighbor to borrow theirs.

I wouldn't try to pull a mower with the 150...and CERTAINLY not with a CVT/auto. I wouldn't go any less than the 200's that are floating around, and then you'd have to find a HUGE sprocket. On my HiBird I'm currently running 15/38 gearing and, at idle, you couldn't pull the mower...there's no power at idle. You'd even have that issue with the CVT or auto.

If I had no other choice than to use my quad, then I would be looking a 90 tooth rear sprocket...and even then I would have to have it adapted because lord knows you can't find sprockets that bike in our bolt patterns.

Plus, for what it would cost to buy a quad to pull the mower he could hire someone to come and blade the entire property so that using a lawn tractor is feasible.