Any one have one or experience using one and what is your opinion? In IA 4w ATVs have stupidly been made illegal for country roads, ditches.

I have had several. They will go anyplace but will not carry any amount of weight on board. You would need a trailer. They have a loyal following that will generate lots of over stated claims. If you have very powerful thighs and can use your legs as outriggers to navigate slow with weight on board you will be fine. But I've not yet met a human being that enjoys that level of effort.

They travel well at 10-15mph, they will be a lethal nightmare waiting to happen at 30mph, no suspension means the low air pressure tires bounce like a basketball when bumps are hit. I swapped mine to Bighorn radials and rand them at 2psi. This combination was far better but reduced top speed to about 22mph.

Over all they are the best off road machine ever for a slow rider. If you expect to go more the 20MPH most of the time forget it. If you expect to carry 100lbs on board forget it. I have packed out quite a few whole animals strapped on, it was simply brutal. You can drag stuff forever on level ground, but dragging on side hills causes the game to roll down the hill and pull the bike with it.

For the price they are simply stupid expensive, far more then a fully equipped ATV. If you're not gonna carry 100lbs of "stuff", or pull a trailer, the Honda Ruckus is a better machine, electric start, it's street legal. It's also less then half the price, better made, and way more comfortable. It will go 35mph safely too.

Repair parts are only available from Rokon, and they will rape you for every single thing. I'm not kidding like a 1000% markup. Most used machines have been heavily modified by the owners so beware of future repairs. If you're very mechanically inclined, and can weld good, the rokon may be a good option for riding point A to B. However do not mistake this for a economical user friendly "scooter" to get you around. It's a beast that needs work to keep going dependably. I never knew a single Rokon owner that ran a stock machine. They were all modified in some way to improve the design and make them dependable. Probably because the parts from Rokon were simply of the charts expensive, so most guys fabbed up some repair and improved the problem area.

JJ, thank you to the tune of $5700!! It's what I needed to know.

Is there something a little larger than the Honda Ruckus,yet sort of a street/trail hybrid?

For packing a heavy load, it's better to divide the weight and hang it low on the sides, NOT on top of the rack. The lower the weight, the better. 100lb behind your back is twice as hard as 100lb hanging below the rack and balanced.

The old Tote Gote was the best two wheeled packer out there..Low center of gravity and a centrifugal clutch(like a snow machine/no gears to mess with).A quarter of an Elk was a piece of cake...

I wished they still made them.

Jayco

A great option is the Yamaha TW200. Fat-ish tires, geared low and street legal.

I ride a TW. It's gets more smiles per miles than anything else....

It's a very specialized vehicle that will get you into some areas that you are unlikely to get into with other motorized options. The speed issue really isn't an issue as the areas that you'd want a rokon to access you aren't going to be going 30mph in.

If the trails are open enough to run 30mph, then there are much better options.

Tell me about the Y TW200 if you would. Can I go slow up and down hills? Skid a deer out on snow? Carry two adults slowly and short distances? Thx.

I've owned 2 TWs, 2 Honda Fatcats, and 2 Yamaha Big Wheels, sold 'em all but the Big Wheels. The TWs weren't geared low enough for me and wouldn't begin to go where the FC & BW would. If you want to scoot down lots of roads and not steep hills, a TW will work. The FC or BW are slower, but better geared, my BW might go 20 mph in 5th gear, a FC might make 30 mph. The BW came in 80cc, 200cc, and 350 cc, the 350s are power monsters, the 200s do me just fine.

I've always wished that Honda had made the old Trail 90 in something bigger than a kid's bike. They had a good design and some good ideas, but that pathetic 90 engine was totally useless. I tried twice to pack out a deer on one and both times I ended up carrying both the deer and the bike.

LOL, got a bunch of them also RC, the Trail 110s were still underpowered, with the big back sprocket they would climb!

Pardon the hijack, but when my daughter lived in Filer, her next door neighbor had a back yard FULL of bikes, you could walk from one side to the other without touching dirt.

But these bikes were made and dc'd in the 80's. If there was such utility to them why discontinued? Is there anything similar that's currently being produced?

The Trail 110 had a tiny bit more power, but they dropped the 2 speed. That was a big help for the tiny engine. They needed a similar bike with a 150cc or bigger.
I think they dropped them because everyone else was making bikes that would get the job done and sales dropped.

George, they weren't big sellers, irrigators and anyone who liked to poke around on sand could see some advantage over skinny-tired bikes. Horn hunters here love 'em.

Not much fun to ride, if you run 2-4 psi the traction improves, but the front wheel kinda goes wherever and you gotta follow it. Ride one all day and your shoulders will ache from fighting the wheel. No match for a Rokon, but better than anything else for rough country.

Been there, done that, with the Rokon. Yes there is a cult following of the Rokon, but they still remind me of a quote my dad had about a monkey and a football.

I have hauled a bear, small, but still a bear, on my Yamaha XT 250. It wasn't as nice as a 4 wheeler, but better than a Rokon...

The tw can be geared down by swapping out sprockets. It has a huge following with guys traveling thousands of miles on them. I would google tw200 and you will get lots of info.

It is good for a lot, but not perfect for anything. I generally take hills quickly, and then carefully going down. It handles sidehills well. The TW has a low seat hieght and is very light weight so it helps when navigating rough areas. The big tires give good traction and help on sandy roads (and paved roads)...changing the sprocket will help here, but will slow you down on the pavement...so I've left mine stock. It will allow you to drag a deer but I've not done it over snow...I did read where some fellows were studding an extra tire and playing on the ice with them. It will carry 2 adults with no problem. My kids ride on it with me often. I often use it when carrying a square bale of hay (cycleracks rack) and/or feed to a front pasture.

An ATV beats it for up/down hills with no need to balance and engine braking and hauling out a deer but you can't ride an ATV 20 miles down the road, then up a mt trail, call yotes until dark, and then ride it back home getting 80-90 mpg the entire time.

THAT perfectly sums up the little TW200. I've lusted over them for years, and if I wouldn't look like a circus bear on a bicycle, I'd have at least one of them in the garage.

I've got an old '72 Rokon that scratches a long time itch. No question they're the coolest looking bike ever assembled, but as others have stated, it's not the end-all of offroad travel. My Honda 4wheeler or XR650 get a lot more attention.

JCM and 222, and others too, that was very helpful. I'm mainly looking to run up gravel roads while running my dog 4-6 miles, and then in the hills for deer, turkey, etc. The reason for the OP was, IA seems schizophrenic on it's views, hence laws, regarding ATVs.

Keep 'em coming if you want. Still undecided.

GDV#3, IF you're willing to sacrifice some ultra-slow trail crawling/load hauling capabilities I'd take a very close look at the TW200. YouTube has some videos of them in action so you can get an idea about their size. Unless you're a Gorilla, it's a very nice little bike, AND being street-legal, opens up options to ride from home at 80mpg while not drawing as much attention to yourself as a big dirt bike or ATV might.

A little nudge........
TW200 Video

Just did a quick search for TW200 on Craigslist. There are a number of them for sale around the country ranging from $1300 to about $4k. One guy in CA has one with 5 miles that he won in a contest for $4k. What do they sell for new anyway?

I think new street price is around $4K----------or it was last fall when I was shopping. Condition and mileage is everything, because they haven't changed much in the last 25yrs. BTW this IS the 25th anniversary. Talk about a "known quantity."

The problem with anything on Two Wheels is the balance. the faster you travel the easier it is. There is the paradox. slow travel on two wheels is exhausting for any distance.

I too had several trail 90's and 110's. It was the slow going easy to ride machine. They still made every part from Honda in the late 90's. Buy one of these and you're probably set for a long time. They did have a 2:1 low range too.

The Honda fat cat was a freaking disaster with any amount of weight on back. I've had the front wheel pop up off the ground when packing heavy meat loads more times then I could count. Lower racks were made to keep the weight down, but they hung up on stuff. It was simply a no win design. The advantage over the Yamaha design was the auto clutch, so the engine never stalled on hills or other complicated travel. The Little Yamaha Big Wheel was amazing fun, but not for crawling along on rocky trails with a load.

There is no easy answer for 2 wheels. The skills I had on a dirt bike as a kid where great, but are not the same as trying to slowly navigate and haul game and camp out on a dirt bike. Dirt bikes are great when flying along, but really fatigue you quickly going slow with your legs as outriggers. There is no good option for slow complicated crawling when you travel on 2 wheels. My neighbor has a Honda Ruckus. At first glance is a silly little scooter, but after riding and fooling with it for an afternoon,..... Well it's so light and easy to ride with the fully automatic trans, it has real potential for trails. It lacks power and suspension, but it's 100X better then walking or a bicycle, and goes plenty fast for trails. Plus it's so quiet electric start, and street legal without even needing a Motorcycle endorsement!

It's certainly not an ATV or dirt bike, but it's an option for the conditions you spoke of.

A while back, I saw a pic of a pig loaded on a Rokon. He was complaining that handling was impossible. The pig was whole with it's 4 legs tied together. It was on it's back on the rear rack and half of it's weight was behind the axle. With a load like that, handling would most certainly be impossible. You couldn't hold up the bike or keep the front wheel on the ground. He needed to cut it in half and hang the halves lower on the side racks, plus moving them forward. His load was terrible for a Rokon and would have been even worse on any other bike.

There's no easy way to load any bike for handling. You have a few laws of gravity to follow. Most bike racks are designed for a top load and there's no way to get it lower. The Rokon has the best rack setup I know of and it's far from perfect.

One thing the bike makers could do to greatly improve load handling would be a longer wheel base so the load could be kept in front of the axle. Of course that would reduce it's agility when not loaded.

Another thing to look for is make sure whatever bike it is, has a kickstarter, neither TW I had did. I was replacing batteries every 2 yrs.

I think the kickstarter is going the way of the recoil start on ATV's.

GDV3, is it just 4 wheel atv's which were made illegal?

If so them a Honda Big Red 3 wheeler is what you want.

Plenty of power and unlike most 3 wheelers they have front forks for suspension.
Be much easier to pack loads than any 2 wheeler.

Just a thought depending how the law is written.

I've seen quite a few trails closed to vehicles over 40" wide. That covers the 3 wheelers.

Thanks so much for the replies. I had a very steep learning curve to overcome in this area and thanks to your input I'm at least started on the up-sloap.

Nasqam, Iowa's laws vary county to county and town to town. I've watched my neighbors' kids fly up and down our rural gravel roads on ATVs for five years while I was walking my dog while being told by some "outdoors folk" that, technically, it's illegal. And, it depends which LEO, if any, happens upon you at the time. So to this point, as far as my knowledge goes, I can't answer your question precisely. But personally, I don't like the idea of doing something that's breaking the letter of the law even if the rural LEOs look the other way or ignore it because it happens to be a way of life.

My wife's opinion weighs heavily against the two wheelers because we had imagined putting along slowly, and together, and as you have indicated, that will be an exercise in frustration and exhaustion on only two wheels.

So, I am back to googling the laws and regs once more and talking to folks. But if anything, it looks like I'm back to an ATV...if anything.

Yep, ATVs may not be operated on public roadways (or ditches)--from IA's DNR book of freedom infringements

In Idaho, an ATV can be made street legal by adding turn signals, a horn, and brake lights if it doesn't have them.
I called the sheriffs dept to verify it and was told that an ATV can't be made street legal. Then I kept hearing about people who had done it so I called them again and got the above info.

I have had several, maybe four or five of them. Two with two stroke motors and I can say NEVER AGAIN! One that had the Honda powerplant and it was pretty good. I wish I still had it. I just traded for one with a Chinese 110 cc motor swapped in and a four speed transmision in it instead of the original powerglide type thingy. So far, so good but little time on it yet.

What I like the most about Tokons is this: IF one falls over on you you push it off of you easily, get up dust yourself off and keep going. If a full size ATV falls over on you - easy to do on a side hill or steep up or down hill by the way - you are hurt and injured, and badly. Not worth it to me.

I have carried some game out with a Rokon by sledding it on a cheap plastic tobagan or a thick plastic tarp and such works very well for me. Don't go sidehill, ride the Rokon straight up to the top and then ride ridges down or up or roads if there are any as needed. Works well for me, I am a BIG fan of them.

They seem to go forever on a cup of gasoline as well.

Something else that works very well is using the hide. Wrap the meat in it and lace it shut with rope. It'll take a lot of wear before it falls apart. You can drag it by hand in snow but it's pretty hard to do on dry ground.

Then you can say is well tanned for your full body mount.

I would second the votes for the Yamaha BW or TW 200. I recently bought a used one and I love it. I find that I can tool around pretty darn slow without any problem. Say under 10 mph for sure. Little different learning curve than the ATV, due to the balance thing but the low seat hight makes them pretty easy to put a foot down now and again.

Now if it only had decent racks in FRONT of the rear axle.

I bought a new TW 200 yesterday.

I sold my Goldwing and was delivering it to the new owner. I got to thinking, yeah, that usually costs me. I mean I did have the trailer behind the truck and I hate to pull an empty trailer. So, I dropped off the 'Wing and drove straight to the nearest Yamaha dealer. In the door and off the lot in 1 hour 14 minutes.

So far, Its a blast, a slow blast, but fun. I took it down some oil patch roads and down the highway about 10 miles.

I'm taking it to one of my leases in the morning to give it a better try out. The place up at Woodville has all kinds of trails to ride on, about 30 miles or so.

Price in Houston was $4,300.00 plus freight of about $400.00.