Recreational

The old saying is, “It’s not the size of dog in the fight, but the size of fight in the dog.” That can now go for ATVs as well. Kawasaki’s new Brute Force 300 doesn’t know it’s an easy to ride, 300cc machine perfectly suited to work around the yard or go for weekend trail rides. It thinks it’s the leader of the pack, and it may be right!

The old saying is, “Good things come in small packages,” and one of the best examples of that in the off-road world is the new Kawasaki Brute Force 300. Though only slightly smaller than the other Brute Force models, it’s a huge overachiever.

If you’ve got either a dirt toy or a band with an Axle in it, sooner or later you’re going to have problems. Just ask Slash and the other guys from Guns-N-Roses. Recently, when we came limping back to the shop with our Can-Am Commander, we had a dysfunctional axle of our own. Luckily for us, our axle problems were much easier to solve than those of Slash and the boys, and the only therapy needed was a little help from the guys at Gorilla Axle.

When it was introduced almost two decades ago in 1995, the Polaris Scrambler 400 made tracks into fresh territory. Before it there were only two ATV categories, sport and utility. The Honda 400EX, the Yamaha YFZ 450R and the Can-Am Outlander 800 weren't even on the drawing board, and custom built chassis ruled the racetrack, while the utility quad world was heavy on the utility side. Single cylinder, 400cc engines were the big bore powerhouses of the day. It all sounds like a tale that begins with: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away…”

CAN-AM never does anything half way, and when we heard rumors of major changes to their ATV lineup, we were more than a little intrigued. What arrived was beyond what anybody outside of CAN-AM’s engineering group ever imagined.

It’s been a long time since bears roamed freely in Southern California’s San Bernardino forest. The high mountain lake area wasn’t named Big Coyote, Big Deer, or Big Prairie Dog, but it is called Big Bear for a reason, despite a century or so of relatively unmolested camping. Recently, Grizzlies prowled the old domain of the Golden bear, every bit the dominant predator they’ve always been. This bear was not the Grizzly of old that chilled the blood of explorers, miners, settlers, and Native Americans, but this Grizzly was introduced by Yamaha and we had come to tame it.

Florida has more than its share of theme parks but there is only one Redneck Yacht Club and on July 4th weekend Just Add Dirt will bring their mud racing program to the Club.

ATV riding has always been a family sport and that means everyone in the family shares the adventure. It doesn’t take much coaxing to introduce a new rider to ATVing, and they usually take to it like ducks to water. It’s important to make sure junior gets started correctly, however, and with literally dozens of youth quads available, we wanted to list the ones that pass our inspection for quality, safety, and complete OEM support from sales, to parts, to safety.

There are, quite possible, many times in an editor’s daily duties, when one might pause in the midst of various editorial activities, look around at their surroundings and breathe a deep sigh, thinking to oneself “How did I ever get so lucky to have been given this job?”

Honda unveiled the fifth generation Honda Foreman ATV at its South Carolina production facility in Florence. The redesigned 4x4 was the first machine fully developed/produced – from concept to production – entirely in the United States. We took part in the quad’s initial production, or “Line Off” ceremony, at HSC prior to riding it at Carolina Adventure World a day later.