Ride on Lawn Mowers

Riding & Ride On Lawnmowers

Most of us have only small gardens with little lawn, if any at all. Even those with comparatively large gardens usually find that a good quality petrol or electric ‘walk behind’ mower to be perfectly adequate. However, the English countryside is full of large houses with acres of land, for which the average mower just is not good enough.

For gardens this large, there is the ‘ride on’ mower. Every husband and father in the country dreams of owning one of these, they are the ultimate ‘big boys toy’.

Quite literally a giant mower with four wheels, a seat, and handlebars. The smaller ones are not dissimilar in appearance to a quad-bike, and larger types are more like miniature tractors. Not only are they great fun to use, but are also an essential tool in maintaining the larger garden.

Although there are many makes and models of this type of mower, they can be simplified into three main categories. Small, Medium, and large. This is the simplest, probably the only, way to categorize them. Every other detail can be so wildly differing that it would be impossible to describe them in any other way.

It would be easiest if you were to think of it this way; Small mowers are for large gardens, medium mowers are for massive gardens of a few acres, and large mowers are for country estates with several hundred acres of parkland.

Each size of these mowers is made with slightly different materials and has different power capabilities. The small mower for instance is made with a very light steel, yet the largest of the mowers is made with extremely heavy, robust steel. Obviously, the job which a large mower has to do is going to take a lot more out of it compared with the comparatively light work load of the smallest mower.

Probably the biggest variation between the mowers, although the least noticeable to the untrained eye looking from the outside, is with the drives. These, as their name suggests, are what makes the mower work. The most frequently used of these, and the cheapest, is the mechanical transmission, and the next one up is hydro-static transmission, both of these do essentially the same job, they drive the pumps, the gears, and the motor itself.

The real big boy of transmissions is the electrically powered type. These are extremely expensive and are reserved for only the very highest quality (and highest priced) mowers.

The other difference of course, is with the motors themselves. The small cheap mowers have small cheap motors, which will last a maximum of ten years. The large powerful mowers have large powerful, and much more expensive, motors. The large motors utilise the very latest in technological advances and use the very best materials, these will last a lifetime if cared for properly, and this is reflected in the price of the mowers to start with.