Kawasaki Mule

[Doc]

I went to our local dealer the other day with my Brother-in-law so he could buy a helmet, and I got a look at some monster Kawasaki Mule. $10,000 price tag, and every kind of thing that you can stick on an ATV.The thing is so big that I would have to re-do all my trails just to make the thing fit along them. I'm really wondering how far these guys are going to go with these things....lol.

First of all, I can't imagine paying $10,000 for a toy. If I'm going to spend that much, I'd better be making part of my income off of it or at least I'd better be able to ride it into town and back .....lol.

The other thing is just the size of it. My gosh they have taken all the fun out of riding these things. I remember my first ATV was a Suzuki Quadrunner. It had all of 185 cc for an engine. The thing was a blast to ride. you could apply a little bit of body-english with it and make that thing do all kinds of fancy handling. Now the ATVs are just great big fat bloated pigs that you just sit on. Yup, some of that is a real good thing, especially for work vehicles. I use my big fat Yamaha for snow plowing, and the 4-wheel drive and monsterous weight is a good thing. But this piggy Kawasaki that I was looking at was so darn big, I would lose all the maneuverability that makes these vehicles such a good thing.

Oh well, I guess for a lot of consumers, bigger is always better. I usually agree, but for me, on this style of vehicle, they are moving beyond anything that I will ever want.

[WNYBuckHunter]

The Mule is more of a farm implement than some of the other ones. Polaris has the Ranger RZR that is just a bit wider than the average 4x4 ATV, you can also jump it and do all kinds of sport type riding. UTVs are nice machines, and between all of the different models out there, they make something for just about everyone. Shoot, even John Deere has a model of the Gator now that will keep up with alot of regular ATVs out there. I still remember riding the original rendition of UTV, which was the John Deere 5 wheeler with the dump bed on it.

Id love to buy a UTV, but the price tag is a little on the hefty side for me. Maybe one of these days I will run across a good deal on a used one. Id rather get a boat first though.

[Doc]

Sitting in that hog, I have to admit that a part of me would have loved to own that thing. But that $10000 killed off any of those kinds of notions. And then too I have to wonder just how well it would handle the hills that I have. I know power would be no problem (it never is) but, even on my big Yamaha, I still feel the need to slide up toward the handlebars as far as possible. No such weight re-distribution possible with the mule. What you got is what you got. Probably would be a bit better on flat land or less aggressive hill-climbs, I don't know. I guess the other thing is that I seldom have a need for a 2nd passenger capability. The dump box would be useful down around the house. Maybe some day I'll win the lottery or something and can have both kinds of vehicles ..... lol.