<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: duster

OK... I've resisted asking this question here in this section until I couldn't anymore.

Really, do you ever ask yourself why you ride a sport quad?

If you want an ATV, why not a utility quad... and if you want to be sportier and faster, then why not quit wussing around and get a dirtbike?</end quote></div>

I've asked myself that question for the last few decades. I started out on bikes when I was 14, and switched to quads 20 years later, and now I have both. I started my ATVing with utility quads, and I missed the mark by a mile when I started out on a Polaris Sportsman 500 HO. It was "ATV of the Year" that year, but it felt like a great big boat anchor to me. It was way too slow, and way way way too heavy. I then went through a lot of sport quads trying to find one with the handling and performance I always remembered from the dirt bike days. I went through three different DS 650s, a Raptor 660, two YFZ 450s, and two KFX-700s. Finally I bought another dirt bike, and started back into dirt biking with the new four strokes. They were really nice, and I had a couple of good ones (KTM 525 and YZ 450F). But they still weren't the same as the big bore two strokes I had spent decades on. So thirty years after I originally started dirt biking I went back to an open class two stroke dirt bike all over again. I bought a KTM 300 XC-W, and it was like magic. Someone had flipped the switch on from all those years ago. It was perfect. Power is perfect, handling is unbelieveable, and I have enjoyed countless days where everything goes so good that you start to think that you couldn't make a mistake if you tried. Every turn, every bump, every hill, ... flawless! And I'm not that good. But the KTM two stroke had the magic combination of being just what I wanted off road for the majority of our yearly riding.

We live in the foothills of the rocky mountains. In winter we drive to the low desert, just 50 miles away, and enjoy riding dirt bikes. In spring and fall we ride the bikes in the high desert, in an area where there are lilterally hundreds of miles of single track old desert race courses. In the summer we ride in the tops of the rocky mountains, at 9000 to 11,500 ft elevation, where there are hundreds, if not thousands of miles of ATV width trails available in several different ATV Trail Systems.

My wife has had several different Yamaha Grizzlys, and I found that a utility quad that actually has some performance is really nice for riding hundreds of miles in a day on ATV width rocky mountain trails. It is quiet, comfortable, easy on your body, and if it has power steering like the Grizzly 700, you feel as fresh at the end of the day as you did when you started. You can literally ride one forever without getting tired.

I found that I was either riding the KTM dirt bike or one of the Grizzlys, and I had a beautiful YFZ 450 just sitting in the garage collecting dust. It was really tricked out, and it worked great. But I never rode it. It couldn't match the dirt bike for handling or suspension, even with Ohlins shocks on the YFZ. And it couldn't match the utility quad for mountain riding. After 18 months of dust collecting on my last YFZ, without it even being started, I answered the question of "Why a sport quad?". I sold it. Our only sport quad now is the Raptor 250 that my 11 year old son rides.

DV

 

This thread keeps going and getting better and better along the way!


DesertViper,

You sound like me when it comes to the 2-stroke thrill.
You also sound like me on the YZF450...
I rode mine and it was a thriller... but it was too tricked to be what I really wanted in the woods.
It got too wide... and it was way more quad than needed for trails...
In the end I sold mine too.

You also seem to have a good quad eye as well.
I see you already picked up on the Raptor 250.
I just saw that was out earlier tonight, and I am real impressed with Yamaha over it.
Looks like the bar was just raised in the 250cc class...

What do you think of it so far?

 

OK heres why i ride a sport quad, i happen to be paralized from the waist down from a motorcycle accident 10 years ago and i dont live on a farm so why would i ride a big ole utility quad? i like the sporty look of the sport quads and i cant ride a motorcycle anymore. Good enough answer for ya? sorry if i sound rude but it seems like you lumped everyone into one category and didnt really appreciate it.

Thanx for listening to me bitch hahaha
Brett

 

Brett,

I would say you have a very good legitimate reason there and sure do not fit into the "lump" there.

 

DesertViper,

Where ya at? I was hoping to hear your owner input on that raptor 250.

 

Hope i didnt soud too rude hahaha. dont see many of us riding quads, why is that? Im also missing my left leg at the hip and boy lemme tell ya i get some wierd looks when im sitting at a red light and someone is next to me. I heard a lil kid once say "look mommy, that guy aint got no leg" i bout fell off my quad laughing. out of the mouths of babes right. Oh well thank you Polaris for putting my face back in the wind again!

 

brett i give you mad props.

 

I really appreciate that bigned, that means alot. Just wish more paralized people would realize that they can still ride!! Dont give up man!!! thats my motto!

 

Here is some 700 Grizzly action that might surprize some of the hard core sport quad riders...

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: 2TV

Here is some 700 Grizzly action that might surprize some of the hard core sport quad riders...</end quote></div>

I'd never even think of doing that with a grizzly.

Like playing basketball with a bowling ball.

I admit I was shocked.
I bet that Grizzly is too.
Can't be nothing stock under that thing!