What to look for in a riding mower for rougher terrain?

I have trails through the woods on my property that take too long to mow with a push mower so I am looking for a used riding mower. I don’t know anything about riders so they all look about the same to me. The trails are a bit rough in areas and I had to set my push mower almost as high as it goes to not scalp certain areas or hit rocks or tree roots. Would a rider be worse because the deck is wider? I’ll be working on getting out the problematic rocks but don’t think I’ll be able to do much about the uneven ground and ruts from water running across in areas.

Is there anything in particular that would make a mower better for this than others that I should look for?

High horsepower. Buy a couple sets of blades and just start mowing. I don’t stop for anything except rocks. I’ll generally make a pass or two with the deck all the way up and then start letting it down. The frame of the mower will flex & twist so it’s surprising what you can mow. I don’t worry about scalping small bumps or brush, after a couple times they are cut down and you are good to go. Keep using your shitty set of blades until you have everything to the point you can run it over then switch over to the good blades.

WARNING….wear glasses to protect your eyes. You will have twigs and dirt bouncing off the nearby trees that will come back and hit you. But after a while that stops also.

I’d say an old cheap one with cheap and easy to replace blades would be best. Unless you plan on hauling fill and smoothing the trails out it’ll be a rough life for any lawn mower.

You have a atv? Them pull behind mowers work good for stuff like that

Previous owners of our place had one of these…sure wish I would have bought it from them when I had the chance.

Rough-Cut Tow Mower

Dutchboy wrote:

High horsepower. Buy a couple sets of blades and just start mowing.

grubson wrote:

I’d say an old cheap one with cheap and easy to replace blades would be best.

Thanks! That was pretty much my plan but thought I’d check to see if it’s a stupid idea or not. I’ll watch for something to pop up for sale and try it out.

Coletrain27 wrote:

You have a atv? Them pull behind mowers work good for stuff like that

jake47 wrote:

Previous owners of our place had one of these…sure wish I would have bought it from them when I had the chance.

Rough-Cut Tow Mower

I don’t have an ATV yet and I don’t think it’s that rough on the trails I have currently. I do plan on connecting them to some other long abandoned trails elsewhere on the land though. Those ones will be a mess and I should have an ATV by then so I’ll check something like that out. Thanks.

Speed slow down, it keeps the deck from bottoming out, watch side-hilling, up and down a hill. As mentioned before mow high till you can see rocks ect.

I run my JD rider on my trails. Very uneven and few rocks & roots to avoid, but as long as the deck is all the way up, it works great! And, as long as I’m able to mow them at least bi-weekly, it looks good too. It seems to work great for me.

THE TRANSMISSION!!!!

There is a significant difference in Lawn tractors and Garden Tractors. I’ve been burned by “lawn” grade crap so many times. No more – never again. Most often you lose a pulley bearing on the deck or the transmission pukes. I’ve fried a few transmissions and got educated on good/bad….

Look for a machine with a Hyro-Gear trans. Run like hell if you see tuff-torq. Obviously much higher end machines should use “better” stuff – some do / some don’t. If you get at a level that you can change fluid in it and a trans filter, you will get so many more years of hard use out of it

Here is a site that has a breakdown of each type of tranny in a tractor

Lawn Tractor Transmission Types

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Randy Wieland wrote:

THE TRANSMISSION!!!!

Thanks for link, good to know!

and put the “beater blades” back on for the first 2-3 mows each year.
bound to have new fallen debris.

Good seat and good suspension on the mower would be a must.

My side hustle is being the caretaker for our local school forest/outdoor classroom. We have about 7.5 miles of trails to keep mowed in the summer and groomed for X-country skiing in the winter. The mower I use is a 72″ Toro zero-turn(school owns it).
The terrain I mow is rough-steep hills, lots of rocks to(try to) avoid, lots of woody-stemmed growth. One full mow of the entire system puts about 25-30 miles on the blades.
Overall, this mower handles it safely and well. Blades…well, they take abuse, but the mower itself is a tank that handles the terrain and doesn’t completely beat the hell out of me while on it. I don’t know if your trails are so wide you need such a wide mowing swath, but the zero turn style makes a huge difference in how well and efficiently I can get the job done and maybe still get some fishing in on the weekend.

reverend wrote:

I don’t know if your trails are so wide you need such a wide mowing swath, but the zero turn style makes a huge difference in how well and efficiently I can get the job done and maybe still get some fishing in on the weekend.

zero turn is probably out of the budget right now but that’s good to know. Once I have the full trail system connected up I’ll probably look at upgrading.

Luckily it doesn’t grow very fast, barely any lawn type grass, and I think I can get away with 2 or 3 times a year to keep it under control. It sure looks nice after it’s done though so I’d do it more often if it didn’t take so long. From what I have mapped out there’s at least 700 more yards to connect to also not even counting any connectors between them.

Attached a few pictures. This isn’t the rough parts though

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