We just moved onto .70 acre with nothing but the house, 20x20 detached garage, 1 small tree and back patio.
It is flat as well.
Should I get a small cheap riding mower or man up and only get a self propelled pusher?
Right now I have a manual reel mower and mowed the front yesterday. Do not look forward to mowing the back with it.
Get a rider. Your time is worth more than that...
I mow faster with a walk-behind than I ever could with a riding mower. Unless you get a zero-turn, you lose a lot of time changing direction on a rider.
Plus, I get to exercise at least once a week.
Ideally, a used commercial walk-behind. Mower deck size rules.
When the dust settles, you have to mow an area that's 173 X 173 feet. Walk it.
Riders are more maintainence, heavier and after hitting the same slot time after time you wear grooves in your lawn; with a pusher you can vary the pattern; and riders shake up your beer too much.
Dan
I have a push mower and an acre. Never considered myself a man though. 
I use a full on powered by me 21" push mower for my .25 of an acre. Takes 40 minutes, and it's good exercise.I also vary the pattern, from parallel/perpendicular to the street to a nice diagonal cross hatch.
I have 0.48 acres. I used a not really self propelled and finished the yard in a little over an hour. I then got a crappy 78 cub cadet rider and it was the same, but it kept breaking. My current LT155 JD rider can finish and leave me time to trim and still get finished in 45 minutes. It's amazing, now that I've got kids it makes a difference.
Side note, the mower was $950 + tax. The old one sold for $100 (with a thrown rod, no belt tensioner and crappy everything). The old one used 1.5 gallons to mow the yard. The new one uses less than 0.25 gallons. If I mow once per week on average for the year, it will take me less than five years to re-coup in gas cost alone.
Ask yourself, what would Tim do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV2MehkFcTw
Riding mower with a Harley V Twin. 
JFX001 wrote: I also vary the pattern, from parallel/perpendicular to the street to a nice diagonal cross hatch.
This is my favorite thing about mowing the grass, crosshatching the pattern. I also like to bag the clippings so I can add it to my compost pile. Yeah, I'm a grass geek. 
No cross hatch, no wheel marks, no ruts, no friction.
EastCoastMojo wrote:JFX001 wrote: I also vary the pattern, from parallel/perpendicular to the street to a nice diagonal cross hatch.This is my favorite thing about mowing the grass, crosshatching the pattern. I also like to bag the clippings so I can add it to my compost pile. Yeah, I'm a grass geek.
Yeah...I felt like a dork writing that, but it lets people know that you take pride in your yard/house.
I recycle our aluminum cans for mower gas money too.
914Driver wrote: No cross hatch, no wheel marks, no ruts, no friction.
Did they ever sell them in the USA?
Yes. The northeast was the test area.
We have two at work; they're buzzy but mow the 45 degree hill easily. The college kids they hire for the summer tie a rope to the bars and they walk it sideways across the hill. Then they let out 24" and walk back. They end up walking across the crest of the hill instead of pushing a mower up & down it.
Dan
Yeah, but who doesn't like stripes on the lawn? Stripes look good.
Another vote for the walk-behind. I have an acre, not flat, good amount of trees and landscaping; I use a 36" walk behind. A rider would be a pain for this size of lawn. Also with the walk behind, I get away with almost no trimming.
Push mower helps keep you trim. A riding mower you can autocross through the back yard. Especially if you buy a $6 stack of mini cones from the sports section of Walmart.
If you get a walk behind, get self-propelled and make sure it's rwd. Fwd sucks, because with the handlebar weight the traction in the front really isn't that great. A two stroke is much lighter but unless you have hills or banks to mow that doesn't really matter. I currently have a Honda for trim work, it has a caster release feature that allows the front wheels to pivot independently. It's really bizarre until you get used to it but it makes turning around a snap; no lifting the front wheels.
That said, I've had riders ever since I was a homeowner and have no desire to 'keep fit' in 90 degress plus humidity. Eff that. Most new riding mowers are CRAP, they are all made by MTD and are disposable. Older riders are much better, even cheaper models like Simplicity. The downsides are how beat up most are by now, fussy belt drives that can be a PITA and some of them are geared way too slow. I replaced my '71 Simplicity with a more modern hydrostatic one and I shaved 15 minutes off my cutting time. When I bought the Simplicity I couldn't justify having a walk behind when my garage kept classic rider only cost $250. Way different story if you're only buying new.
Riding mower all the way, anything else is a waste of you life. If you really want a push more, don't get a self propelled. My experience is that the drive system always has a lot of drag when you aren't using it, and they need more maintenance than riding mowers do. And the reason I bring the drag while not in use up, is that they are NEVER fast enough. I don't like spending an hour mowing <1 acre.....LAME!!
You can change your driving patter on a riding mower just as you can with a push mower. And in about 15 minutes your finished mowing, grab the weed eater, spend another 10-15 and you're done.
If you have a really busy yard like I did at my last place, a push mower will be better suited. But if it's more open than not, get a riding mower and have a couple extra beers with the time you save from not walking ever square foot of the yard.
I'll also second buying older mowers. New ones are all definitely crap. Yeah, you can spend $8K on a John Deere of a Cub Cadet, or you can spend $200-400 on a Wheel Horse, Case, or some other brand from the 70s-80s that has Hydrostatic drive and you might worry about your kids totalling your car with the mower. They are built with heavy gauge steel beam frames. The Hydro-drive allow for variable speed selection, easy to go from forward to reverse, and they never stop working.
914Driver wrote: No cross hatch, no wheel marks, no ruts, no friction.
What is that thing?
Where do I get one?
What do they cost?
That would be perfect for mowing the sides of my ponds. They are too steep for easy mowing.
I used to be the guy with the me-propelled push mower who liked to feel a bit self-rightous about his neighbors (both sides, behind, and across the street) who had similar sized lawns and big fancy riding mowers. I used to think they were lazy, spent too much money, etc.
Then I got a free riding mower - well used, a bit rusty, just had to fix a broken ball joint on one tie rod and buy a battery, cleaned it up a bit, and it's been a mowing fool for the past couple of years. Lots faster than pushing. I am not a grass geek - the only patterns I cut in my grass is me just having fun driving the mower around however I feel like it. I think I would be ok with paving my entire yard and painting it green honestly. I only care the little I do about the yard because I don't want to be "that guy" that the rest of the neighborhood despises. A riding mower is also a good way to experiement with toe-in/toe-out and if you are willing to use some force and have an old crappy mower that was free camber adjustments.
Get a real mower- a reel mower. that's will be some decent work. 
BTW- if you get an old self propelled, do the smart thing and DON'T read that article in a magazine we all love about converting old mowers into racing vehicles. You may end up with many mowers that way- some that no longer do it's original job....
I think they recommended an old John Deere.
Eric
ps- the real solution is to tear down the 20x20 and build a REAL structure. tht will eliminate enough lawn to get a cheap push mower.
Flymo:
http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-FLYMO-LAWNMOWER-EXCELLENT-CONDITION-2-CYCLE-/160464820861?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0
alfadriver wrote: Get a real mower- a reel mower. that's will be some decent work.
That is what I have now.
alfadriver wrote: ps- the real solution is to tear down the 20x20 and build a REAL structure. tht will eliminate enough lawn to get a cheap push mower.
I can't, it is a rental.
TJ wrote: I only care the little I do about the yard because I don't want to be "that guy" that the rest of the neighborhood despises.
It's not so much that I aim to be "that guy", but my one neighbors yard is atrocious.I have a 3:1 ratio with them, I mow 3 times to their one...and I mow once a week.Their son, "Lumpy" will mow, pick up the trash/papers, and throw it back where he has just cleared the path. It took them over a year to put up a privacy fence, and they don't take care of the weeds on this side (currently 2'-3' feet high). They get the family together once a year to clean out the weeds in the front flower beds.
We live on a busy street, no houses in front, so people do look....and notice. Plus, My Lovely Wife is a teacher, and she has bunches of students and parents that drive by.
I just want it to look nice.
*On a side note, I used the Flymo's when I worked on a golf course some twenty-odd years ago, worked well on the areas close to the ponds/water.
I appreciate the unanimous decision, yall.
I'm more confused now that I was before I asked.
I love this place.
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