Hay yamaha dudes,

I have a nine year old girl fixxin to be ten.
I have been looking around for a little quad for her.
She rides very well, I have a lakota sport with many mods and with the throtle limit screw on she handles the bike quite well.
Well heres the problem my son and I ride alot and my daughter loves to ride.
Hence, we need another quad.
Do any of you have a raptor 80. Will this things smallness be more trouble than it's worth.
I've been continplating a 250ex with a throtle limit screw, but her size says the litle raptor.
My concerns are it's only four inches off the ground and only has a little over two inches travel. Will I be dragging this thing off of dirt mounds or bumps.
And also, yamaha has provided an excellent cockpit for the small riders to grow into, but how about the power!

Thanks for all the help guys I as well as she aprieciate it

 

gaff-the shocks on the badger 80 suck, there is no nice way to put it. I wiegh 185 and can barely get them to move. The small quads are a tough call, none are all that great. For the prices i would try the 250ex if she is big enough to handle it. My 9 year old has a badger and does very well on it. I let him ride the other quads some and notice that he rides them a whole lot slower than his badger, i think the size intimidates him. That would be one point to consider. The badger has been a solid quad no repairs in 3 1/2 years, just tires and oil changes. I would stay with the big three. If i did it over again i would probably go with the suz lt 80 as my 1st choice, badger 2nd and honda 3rd. I dont see enough difference to put the pull start honda over the solid front axcel of the badger. The lt80 did alot better at the dunes than the badger did. Stebob is getting his son a quad at x-mas so give him a shout in the kawi forum.

 

I went though this earlier this year and wound up buying dirt bikes. The Badger (Raptor 80) is too heavy (250 lbs.) and suffers from the same problem as the Warrior and Banshee: antique design. I got on it and the suspension sank maybe an inch, and I weight 185. The best quad I came across was the ITP Powersports stuff out of TN. They come with Fox Shocks, Big Gun exhaust, Magura brakes, and have levers actually sized for smaller hands. They use Honda motors built under license in China. I believe the 50 has four inches oftravel and the 90 slightly more. Yamaha also makes the 125 Breeze, a three speed auto.

 

I'm with you guys, it's atough call.
I went through it before with the same results, now I have an XR80 and a XR100 in the shed.
Don't get me wrong awsome bikes, and ridden hard every weekend.
I didn't know stebob was looking also, I'll deffinately want his oppinion, if he'll still talk with me.
I was qite under the influence the other night and started to type away on a couple of threads I woke up in the morning to see how stupid I got and stebob had a message of enough your killing me.
Thanks guys I'm going to kawi to start a thread.

 

My 4 year old has outgrown his Powerwheels Kawasaki and last summer I picked up a Polaris Scrambler 90 for him. Big mistake. The throttle limiter had to be set high enough for the clutch to engage, but that was enough for the auto trans to upshift. So he's flying around here doing about 20 mph. After buzzzing my wife and her girlfriends at their afternoon cocktail hour, the Polaris was packed up and taken back to the dealer the next day.......It is still there,,,,,I still own it.....
.......It was going okay really, except for the uncontrollable speed.
So I ask the dealer if he will trade me out for a new Raptorette and he agreed. So here's what I'm going to do. The Raptorette looks great. but the suspension really sucks, I keep hoping they will do something with it before it actually arrives but my dealer assures me it is a reskinned Badger. Other than the sucky suspension and front end design it is really pretty okay. So I am going to widen it, lower it, and put Blaster front A-arms, hubs and brakes on it. I have already found these parts on here and they should be on the way by now. I think I will need Blaster shocks too, at least in front, with softer springs. I don't know what I can do in the rear.
.....This is a pretty major project. Hacking up a new quad, building a Blaster front end (I can borrow a Blaster to copy the frame design) is a pretty ballsy endeavor. And oh yeah, with the three speed auto clutch with electric start, I can put it in first gear and take the shift lever off. That and the throttle limiter and the widetrack treatment should make a mini-quad suitable for a 5 year old. I plan on delivering this for X-mas. I am going to remove the plastic before bringing it home and TRY to keep it a secret....That may be the hardest part of all....[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

Thanks for your input.
Thats a little more work than I can afford, not to mention time.

 

I bought a badger for my sons earlier this year and they love it!! As for there abilty to go places, it has really shocked me all the places it can go. As far as being stable on off cambers, it's better than my Wolverine, and seems like it would be very hard to roll. But like everone said, the shocks don't hardly give at all. I just bought another quad last night for them, a lt80. It seems to have better (softer) springs, front and rear, and I was thinking of trying to use the springs or shocks off it on the Badger. They both have enough power to pull my 200+ lb but around, so I would think that they would be good for just about any young beginer. I also thought about something a little bigger, but I've found that kids need to stand on the pegs/floorboards, and have a few inches between their inseem and the seat, other wise, they can't really hold themselfs on very well. A kid that learns to ride great on a smaller machine, will always be a better rider when they get a bigger one. Putting a kid on a big machine is a accedent waiting to happen.

 

Thanks, That was arealy good post.

I mean it, when your looking at it from a parents point of view you have a lot of indosicions.

I have a similar post in the kawi room, and I was starting to lean to the bigger machines.

But realy that was an excellent post.
You never think about it but without your feet solidly on the pegs how would you work the body english.
Alot of sense thanks a lot!!!

 

Asfastasu,
I am trying to decide between the badger and the LT80 for my eight year old. Since you have both
which one do you or your children like better and why?? Thanks for your help.

 

We rode for around 3 hours yeasterday, this was the first time for our badger vs. lt80 shoot out. Both of my boys rode both the machines the same amount, and both picked the lt80 over the badger for ever thing EXCEPT for going down hills. (it may be because it's the "new" machine, only more time will tell) They both like both machines, but neither of them like going down bigger hills on the free wheeling lt80. As far as their abilty (quads), they seem pretty much equal, that is, one didn't do anything that the other couldn't. The badger stills seems more stable, and it is also just slightly bigger, fitting my soon to be 8 year old better. Now, if I could just talk the wife into getting one we'd be a wheeler family!