I bought a 2001 Raptor a year and a half ago to ride mostly in the dunes but my daughter rides it more than I do. My son rides my LT500 . I bought a 03 Grizzly last fall to plow snow and go hunting with. Of course I had to try it in the dunes so I built some adapters to use the 8 paddle haulers off my old Blaster and we headed out to Little Sahara. The sand was wet and all chopped up with tire tracks. The LT500 and Raptor were very rough riding on this wet sand but the Grizzly floated over the ruts like they weren't even there. Although it doesn't climb the longest and steepest hills, I had a blast ripping around all of the big bowls behind Sand Mountain and I was riding double. Except when I want to race someone up the hills, I prefer riding the Grizzly over the LT500 or Rapter. It rides like a Cadillac. When we ride rough trails, everyone wants to ride the Grizzly. Everyone liked the first Grizzly enough that I went out and bought another one so I would have one to ride. In 9 months I've put almost 1500 miles on it with very few problems. Nothing has broken but the gas boiled when I hauled hay (1 ton at a time) and when I sprayed the alfalfa at low speed. I fixed the problem by takeing off the side panels when I work it hard on the farm. I have never had this problem in the dunes or on the trails when the speeds are higher. My only complaint with it is I can't climb every hill in the dunes - I think if I could get another 10 to 20% more power out of the engine it would climb anything - piston, cam, pipe, clutch? Before I bought the first Grizzly, I looked at the Honda - no low range so it wouldn't work on the farm. I looked at the Kawasaki - no independent rear suspension so it rode rougher and didn't have the ground clearance. And I looked at the Polaris - too heavy and the single brake lever locks up the rear brake before the front brakes when going down steep hills causing fish tailing - no good for the wife. Also, after riding with two different friends that have Polaris, I found that if they are stopped going up on a very steep hill with good traction, the clutch will burn the belt and the machine would not start up the hill. One had to back down off the steep part just foot or so and get a start - once the RPMs came up high enough he didn't have any trouble going up the hill. The other guy was a novice rider so I thought it was just him but when I got on his machine it did the same thing to me - We had to turn it around by hand to keep it from tipping over sideways then I rode it back down the hill and got a running start then didn't have any problem. The Grizzly doesn't have this problem - it will either spin the tires, climb the hill, or come over backwards - it will not sit there and burn the clutch. Some other things I like about the Grizzly is the 4WD and differential lock for going down steep hills - everything is tied together so the front brakes wil stop the rear tires and the back brakes will stop the front tires. You don't have to modulate front and rear to get the most traction. The sport machines are better on high speed trails and in the dunes but they can't even go on the rough trails that I like to ride in the mountains and just try to pull a trailer hauling a ton of hay with a Raptor. I think that for all around riding - dunes, trails, mountains, farm work or whatever you want to do, the Grizzly will do more things better than any other machine out there. The only other problem I have is I need a biger trailer to haul all of my machines - The Grizzlys are longer thatn the LT500 and the Raptor.