The C-dales are nice bikes. The only thing faster than a Cannibal (currently produced stock machines) is one of the more expensive Cannondales.

 

Go with the Cannondale

 

What about the banshee?? IF you wanna get a fast machine for a cheaper price get the bashee. Sure it will be more maintenance but hell for a quad that fast why not..?m If you know nothin abouit these quads heres a few things that will help you..There very fast, there a 2 stroke with somewhere around 9inches of suspension, and if you mod it heavily and i mean heavily it will reach speeds of 90+mph!!

 

Hey HondaGuy, I know all about the Banshee, when I was a kid I used to love the banshee, it was the baddest atv on the market. So, naturally when I started looking at getting a quad the Banshee was at the top of my list, until I realized that it was almost identical to the Banshee that I loved 15 years ago. Now 15 years with no major updates is a testament to the quality and design of the quad, but come on, to me thats just plain inexcusable. Yamaha needs to update the Banshee badly, 2strokes are supposed to be lighter than the 4stroke competition, the current Shee weighs in at 386, with current design technology I am willing to bet they could get it down to 350lbs. I also dont want an on/off powerband, I will mostly be doing tight, twisty, up and down through the woods trail riding, not ideal for the way a Banshee delivers power. If they just added power valves to the cylinders, that 350 would be such a better and more powerful engine. There are so many things Yamaha could do to improve the Banshee, in my eyes they have neglected it. I hope they dont let it end like this, I am a big fan of 2strokes, there is tech being developed right now that can save the the good old 2banger, nothing sounds or accelerates like a 2stroke, unfortunatly I cant bring myself to purchase a 15 year old quad that cost the same as some of the newest tech on the market. The Banshee is not even an option for me, sorry.

 

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]
Sledneck, I hope you are bringing this new Kawasaki to Indiana!!! and leaving it here for me! Cool! When did all this come about? Are you going to be "ATVneck" now? News flash: Global warming hits Grand Forks, ND, snowmobilers buying ATV's!

 

Jack, I liked the Raptor, but I am going to get into racing and I decided to go with the R. For me, I found the Raptor to be a little too heavy and tippy for harescrambles and GNCC stuff. As a trail bike, it was great. Also, I never had any problems with it. In a perfect world, I would have liked to keep it for play riding, but the budget only allows for one quad (not sure it even allows for that [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]) As far as the racing, I plan on running about half of the District 11 (southern Ohio) harescrambles and 2-4 GNCCs next year.

 

My girlfriend and I both have Z's. She's a beginner, I've been on bikes since I was little. Anyhow, we have to give all four of our thumbs up. Mine has over thirty hours and really is a ton faster than the bike I first bought. It has really awaken. This is also the reason why people are getting such different outcomes in drags. Give it time. We ride these on the trails all the freakin time and they do great, EXCEPT, my girl being fairly new to riding has a bit of time while on technical stuff. It's geared a tad too tall if you're not good with a clutch. I even stall it from time to time, but whatever, she'll start in any gear with a flip of the thumb. The Kawi is the same, just green. Even with the gearing, she'll bring up the front end in third just fine. I plan on dropping the gearing just a hare for the trails. I hardly ever get all the way to the top anyhow, don't live near the dunes. Although I am going there in a couple of weeks or so. Whatever machine you choose, I hope you're as happy with yours as we are ours. Any questions about these machines, just pm me. I'm outta commission healing from surgery, so I can't ride, so it's all I've been thinking about.
peace

 

Sledneck

What type of riding conditions are you planning on?
Trail riding, racing , duning, Ect..
The reason I ask is becuase it'll determine the quad.

The Suzuki/Kawie is a great pick for trail riding.
But I would go withe the Cannondale if you plan on racing since it comes with more goodies and will cost less in the long run do to hop-ups to compete with the faster riders.

I have a 02 Speed and love it. I race GNCC's and local woods races so it's a great quad and very competive right out of the box.

A third will be available in the next 3-4 months and they will be 2 awesome machines. The ones I'm talking about are Gas Gas's 2 new race ready machines. One is a 300 2-stroke and the other is a 400 4-stroke w/ efi (Simliar to the cannondale's moto). The best part about this machines is that you get all the goodies needed to race, so there is no need to hop-up the machines and all this for $7k for the 2-stroke and $7700 for the 4-stroke.

I am talking to a dealer in ohio about the 300 and I will have more info next week about it. I'll be posting my new info on the cannondale post, since I race a cannondale and couple of the guys there are interested in this machine too.
Sorry about the long winded post, I hope it helps. The big key is buying a quad that best suits your needs.

 

Hey I haven't riden an ATV for over 10 years. Two weeks ago a bought a new Z400. This thing is soooooo forgiving. Within minutes I was doing power slides, small jumps and tight turns with total confidence!!! I've been riding super sport street bikes for the past several years and wanted some change. The Z is a great machine for the price. My buddies after taking it for a spin last weekend are ready to trade off their utility quads for one of these. Try one out, I bet you'll take one home.