Squaring the circle. Ride-on mower turning circles facts and tips
Turning Circles are an important consideration when you are buying a ride-on mower.
Generally you are likely to be buying a ride-on mower or lawn tractor because you have larger lawns to cut (maybe more than 2000 m2/half an acre)
It is worth remembering that with almost any kind of ride-on mower there will be uncut area in your mowing when you come back down the lawn to mow the next strip. A teardrop or semi-circle of uncut grass. This can of course be cut by returning or reversing and cutting again. A zero-Turn mower however, will eliminate this problem. (See example below featuring walk-behind mowers)
There is also the issue of trees, ornaments, borders and other obstacles. The smaller the turning circle you have, the more manoueverable your ride-on is.
Subsequently the size of your turning circle will affect how long the lawn takes to mow and how much to-ing and fro-ing is involved.
As a very rough guide, the turning circles of most ride-ons fall somewhere between 10 and 71cm (4″ – 28″).
Rear engine ride-ons have fairly good turning circles. Lawn Tractors circles are generally larger.
Large ride-ons with out-front decks like the example below have good turning circles (246cm on this one) the body of the ride-on also follows the cutting deck precisley for easy manoeuverability.
A Stiga Villa With Out-Front Deck
Zero-Turn mowers are ideal for pretty much eliminating the Turning Cirlce issue (See example below)
A Toro Zero-Turn Timecutter
If you would like to see our range of ride-ons and compare for yourself, please click here.