Over the past six months, the Honda 420 ES we’ve had on test has been in use nearly every day.

On arable land, it has been used for slug pelleting (withquite a bit to dothis year) and it’s coped well. Initially, I was unsure if the rear suspension would be manenough to carry a fully laden slug pelleter, as the 420 only has one rear shock instead of the two on larger models. For a bit of slug pelleting it’s fine, but if you did hundreds of hectares you would be better off with a bigger model.

The 600 breeding ewes we havehave also kept it busy. As our farm is predominantly heavy clay, a quad is the only thing that treads lightly enough when it’s wet. We also run sheep on some fairly steep hillside, and the 420 has had no problem in getting up even the steepest parts.

Lambing is nearly finished, and we’re feeding turned-out ewes everyday,carrying at least 250kg on the Logic trailer, as well as a few bales of hay and the odd mineral block. Because of the power-to-weight ratio, there’s little bother when towing a trailer up steep inclines.

Because bikes aren’t always equipped with mud guards (why is this?), anything that was towed behind would get quickly caked in it. So, we’ve made some mud flaps out of some old elevator belting and bolted them on to the rear carrying rack.

The 420 has electric shift with buttons on the left handlebar. With five forward and one reverse gear, there’s enough of a range for most applications, including keeping a steady speed when slug pelleting.

The drawbar is right under the quad, so it’s not easy to hitch up to the trailer, but overall we’ve been impressed.