How much HP? - Round 2... (New Mower Finally)

I bought a stander this time, specifically because of one new commercial account with a pretty serious, and bumpy hill. I gained the account last fall, and I had to be extremely careful on my Exmark Lazer-Z with AT101's - which I've been extremely impressed with on hillsides - not to slide down the hill.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, swears that Standers are superior to Z's on hillsides. And a recent poll on the Wright Owners facebook group, said that the ZK's were superior to other Wrights on hillsides. The next day, this one popped up, and I responded to the seller. The next morning (yesterday) I wired him some money for a deposit, and drove 3-1/2 hours one-way to pick it up. And here we are. (I got it cheap enough that if I'm not happy with it, I can sell it, probably for a small profit, and get another Lazer.)

I have one 2-acre commercial account where I think I'll stick with the Lazer. Plenty of space to mow full-sticks there - almost 12mph - and it's almost an hour and a half of seat time. I don't think I'll feel like standing for all of that. And the Lazer having the AT101 tires helps in a particularly wet drainage area there too.

The worst part of this, is that I really don't have room at home for (2) mowers. So either my parents get a free zero-turn for a while, or I do the garage-shuffle a couple times a week. We'll see.

So yesterday, I was at a cleanup job with the ZK on the trailer, and thought to myself, "I'mma take this opportunity to try it out a little bit."

First trial, a drainage ditch that's somewhat steep at a weekly account, I may have approached this a little too aggressively, believing the hype that "sTaNdErS dO sO mUcH bEtTeR oN hIlLs BrO!"...



For proper understanding, I approach the ditch as if I were coming from the street toward the ditch, and begin turning right (would be facing the camera) as the nose of the mower starts pointing downhill. This sort of eases the mower into the bank, and as you are turning right, the downward slope becomes a left-leaning slope.

I attack this with my Lazer X-series with AT101's with full confidence, and have seldom ever had an issue here.

This time on the ZK, the left drive tire hit the soft soil, and just sank. I was stuck immediately. I tried moving back & fourth, moving the right/uphill tire to position the mower in different directions, but nothing helped. Even hopping off the platform, and treating the mower as a walk-behind as i pushed on the stationary bar... Nothing helped. Stuck...

It's worth noting, that one big difference between this mower and my Lazer X-series, is that the Wright deck is fairly centered on the frame, and the Lazer's deck is biased A LOT toward the left of the machine. This means the Lazer's left side of the deck overhangs the left drive tire quite a bit, and lets you really stick the trim side of the deck out on a limb so to speak, and lets you keep the drive tire further away from obstacles, or in this case, mud...










Oh, and then the superior ground clearance, useful for climbing curbs...
Again, stuck...