My 12 year old daughter has outgrown her Grizzly 125 and needs a bigger ATV. She's 5' 4" tall and weighs about 145lbs. We ride mostly trails. We have ridden in Colorado the last two summers and this year we are going to the Hatfield and McCoy trails. She does not want to shift and she wants a full floorboard for her feet. I tried to get her on our 300EX, but she has no desire for a sport ATV ( that means no Raptor 250, too bad). Here are my choices in order, but any extra suggestions would be appreciated.

1) Honda Recon
2) Yamaha Grizzly 350
3) Polaris Trail Boss (probably to heavy for her)

 

Recon is a Shift model. I think all the 250 Utilities are shift models.

The Grizzly 350 2wd is the same weight as the trail Boss,at 500lbs they are the lightest AUTO utilities you will find unless you get the 200 Polaris Phoenix with no racks but thats not much of a upgrade from her 125.

 

The Honda Recon is a super fun sweet little machine! These things are absolutely bulletproof and will run forver. It has a manual transmission, but it is autoclutch (no left hand clutch), and can be had in ES (electronic push button shifting) if she insists.

Keep in mind however, that the Honda 250EX is a Recon in sport plastic, yet it is a hefty 50 pounds ligher, which makes it even more fun and more stable! It does have a left hand "sportclutch" (later models), and she might discover that a clutch isn't such a bad thing after all.....