New Toro Recycler Walk Behind - Experiences?

[Bird]

I've forgotten exactly when it was, but it would have been about '82 or '83, I think. I was fleet manager at the time, and after Harley got the CHP to buy some of their bikes, they threatened to sue me and the City of Dallas because I wouldn't buy them. Of course I just told them to give it their best shot and never heard anymore from them. I talked to the CHP fleet manager on the phone about the bikes, then I saw him 3 years later and asked how they were doing and he said Harley'd had 3 years of research and development at their (CHP) expense, but had improved enough that some of the guys who worked the wide open, rural highways actually preferred them, but the guys who worked in the urban high traffic areas still preferred the Kawasakis.

 

[Joe1]

Honda has 1100 and a 1300 (1260 actually) Police models. The City of San Luis Obispo, CA (Population 40,000) acquired at least two of them. They sure look slick but with a 7.7 gallon gas tank, rack mounted radio and a liquid cooled V-4 mounted fore and aft (like the old "gooses" LA PD used) sticking out of each side it looks like it might be top heavy. They are attractive looking rides.

 

[Bird]

Joe, those look more like a BMW than a Honda. I'll have to admit I'm surprised. Of course I retired many years ago, but back then Honda was too smart to market a police bike. Even though my 1200cc Aspencade was capable of more than 125 mph (according to some biking magazines; not personal experience ), the Honda manuals said to operate only at legal speeds and never exceed 85 mph. Only Harley and Kawasaki would call their bikes "police" models that could run over 100 mph. Some police departments tried to get Honda to market a police bike, but they didn't need the extra business and there was just no incentive for them to take on the extra headaches. If you sell a "police" motorcycle or car, you have to submit bids, you have too many people to satisfy, and you can bet you'll be sued when one crashes. Kawasaki got sued by a number of officers and departments because of crashes due to "high speed wobble" that was most likely not actually a problem with the bikes. But I did know of some places where the officers bought and owned their own motorcycles and were paid a monthly and/or mileage rate for using their own bikes. In those cases, the Honda was the preferred bike.

 

[Joe1]

Bird:

As I recall, the highspeed wobble some believed was caused by the shock mounted radio which at high speed caused some instability.

Honda did actuall market a police bike. It was in the early to mid 1970 and was a single cam 750A 4 cylinder with a two speed automatic. San Diego PD purchased them but only one time. They were just not good even for city traffic. I have seen a photo of Japanese police riding Honda 750's in the very early 1970's.

While I was in Vietnam, the Saigon Police (they wore white shirts so naturally the politically incorrect GI's called them the "white mice") rode Harley Sportsters. Kind of "dresser models" with windshield and saddle bags. The Police for the most part didn't weigh 120 lbs so they must have had some fun trying to kickstart those 883 cc V-twins.

 

[Kevin_in_VA]

Not sure what caused the wobble but I, and several others, almost lost it during high speed pursuits. It seemed like the wheel balance was off, or maybe a bit out of true, which can cause similar characteristics.

 

[Bird]

Joe, I wasn't involved with the motorcycle fleet in the 70s. I did go on a tour of all of Harley's facilities in Milwaukee in '72, but didn't know at that time that I'd be involved with fleet management later. So I never knew Honda to market a police bike.

During the time I was fleet manager, BMW loaned us a bike for a little while, as they did all over the country. They claimed that 85% of the world's motorcycle police rode BMWs and that they were going to take over the business in the USA. It wasn't long before they backed out. For one thing, the American officers are apparently the only ones who insist on "running boards" instead of foot pegs, heel and toe shift instead of just toe shift, and BMW was also doing some experimenting with different gearing than they normally used. I don't know where they are with that now, but I do know a few cities currently use BMWs. In Dallas, it seemed that the smaller officers liked that BMW and the bigger guys did not.

I'm sure you know how reluctant many people are to change. And that's as true for cops as for anyone else. I can remember in 1966 when Dallas bought their first police bikes (Harleys) with foot shift. The motor jockeys were quite upset and everyone wanted to be the last to give up his bike with the foot clutch and hand gear shift.

As for the high speed wobble . . . that's still debated, but basically it was blamed on improper tire pressure to a limited extent, and to a greater extent to improper air pressure in the front fork. Of course driver error was also blamed. It seems the wobble would happen so fast that when the rider felt the bike go one way, by the time he could attempt to correct, the bike was already started the other way, so he over corrected, and things just went downhill from there. The Dunlop tire company produced an interesting video in Great Britain that you almost had to see to believe. They had a light weight rider who would get a bike to wobbling so violently that it would sling his feet off the pegs, but he would make no attempt to stop it except to lean forward; i.e., shift his weight more to the front wheel and the bike would straighten itself right out. With a heavier rider, the bike would not go into a high speed wobble at all.

 

[DK35vince]

Kevin,
Which mower did you decide on ?
I'm looking at similar mowers and have not decided which one to go with yet.
I want a long lasting and reliable mower, self propelled with rear wheel drive and a deck material that will never rust out.
So far its been a tie between the Toro SR4 super recycler. ( w/Briggs and Strattan motor with aluminum deck). And the Honda HRX with the Xenoy (plastic) deck.

 

[Coyote]

I've got the recycler with personal pace self propelled and it really works, the self pace thing is cool. Unless the grass is REALLY high, you never see any clippings.

 

[Bird]

Unless the grass is REALLY high, you never see any clippings.

I've been using the grass catcher. And today, I gave my new mower a real workout. You can see what my yard looked like 36 hours earlier in this thread, so we had a heavy dew this morning and everything was still very wet. I had one of those situations that's all too common; the grass was too wet to mow and too tall not to. So I mowed it. You're only supposed to cut off one-third at a time, right? Well, I cut one-half to two-thirds of wet grass, the mower never slowed at all and I was surprised that it could blow that wet grass back into the grass catcher as well as it did.

 

[Bird]

Kevin and Vince, did you guys ever buy a new mower? The best walk behind mowers I ever used in the past were the old 2 cycle LawnBoys. But I've been giving this new Toro Super Recycler a workout and it just may be as good as they old LawnBoys were. I made myself some ramps so I can put it in the pickup easily and I've been mowing, now only our yard, but both of our grown daughters' yards. I've mostly used the grass catcher but have experimented without it, even with the side discharge, dry grass, wet grass, knee high grass and weeds, and yesterday even running right on through puddles of water. If it holds up and lasts as long as it should (more than the remainder of my lifetime), it's going to be OK. The engine's never even sounded like it was laboring and it'll mow just about as fast as I want to walk.

And maybe the best part is that I've had one of my daughters, my grandson, and even my wife operating it so everyone's happy with it.