What are the essential parts that go into making a ride on lawn mower and what do you need to know about them? I started thinking about how I would describe a ride on lawn mower and cutting grass to an alien if ever I met one. Not that I am expecting to but I always think it is the best way to describe something as though you were talking to someone who knew nothing about the subject.

Well, I have to admit that explaining the actual cutting of the grass seems a bit unnecessary here, since few aliens will be reading, but I will try to explain the fundamental parts of a ride on lawnmower for anyone who is not too familiar with them.

The overall shape and appearance of a ride on lawn mower may be either like a small tractor with an engine at the front, called lawn tractors, or something like a large go-kart where the engine may be underneath or behind the driver.

We’ll start with the essential ingredient of any lawnmower, the cutting blade. The grass cutting blade is the sharp piece of metal, or sometimes plastic, that spins around and cuts the grass. This blade is enclosed under a cutting deck.

The cutting deck is a shaped piece of metal, or sometimes plastic, that protects you and anyone nearby from the spinning cutting blade. The grass cutting deck also has another purpose and that is to direct the flow of the cut grass to the outlet, which may be at the side or the rear, where the cut grass is discharged either onto the lawn or into a grass collector bag or box for convenient disposal.

The cutting blade under the cutting deck is powered by a gas engine that also drives the wheels, Yes, you do have to have some wheels. The gas engine may be positioned at the front, the middle or the rear of the riding mower but wherever it is positioned the power is directed to the cutting blade and the wheels.

We also need controls for the gas engine to control the speed of the spinning blade and they usually have a gearbox of some type so we can control the speed our riding mower separately from the speed of the lawn cutting blade. Another control we need is for the height we want to cut the grass and this may involve raising the whole grass cutting machine or just raising the cutting blade or deck.
The more sophisticated rideon lawn mowers cost more but usually have more comprehensive control systems.

Finally, we have the most important feature of a ride on lawn mower and that is the SEAT. It couldn’t be a rideon mower without a seat so this makes the place you park your rear the most important feature. Some of the cheaper riding mowers have a very basic plastic seat but the more you pay the better the seat is likely to be. If your rear end is important you might want to take a bit of time checking the ride on mower seat is well shaped and comfortable to sit on for as long as it takes to cut the grass in your yard.

So there we have it. A ride on mower is a few wheels, an engine, a cutting blade and a deck, a few controls and a seat. Oh, and you need a steering wheel too. Make sure if you buy a riding mower you have a means of steering it where you want to go or you could be cutting the grass from here to the other side of the country in one long straight line. I guess we should also include a brake of some sort, often a foot pedal, otherwise you might just end up in the sea.