Kawasaki's KFX50 Youth ATV Makes It Easy to Learn, and Get Your Kids Smiling

I've created a monster. 

Since infancy, I've exposed my daughter (my eldest) to all the things I love. From punk and metal music, fancy-ass food like duck and wagyu beef, my love of the outdoors, and—most of all—my passion for powersports. As such, she's become obsessed with following in my footsteps whenever she can, which includes riding motorcycles and whatever else comes to our house. 

And as we've expanded what RideApart covers, that's come to include things like ATVs.

Now, she's been riding her Kawasaki Elektrode for over a year and she's really good at it. She's already riding part of the single-track I've built in our backyard. But lately, she's been itching for a new challenge. This is, after all, the girl who decided to learn how to ride a bicycle without training wheels in the span of three hours.

So when Kawasaki once again called me up and asked, "Hey, would you and Gigi like to test our new ATVs?", all I had to do was look at her excited face for the answer.

Yet, while she'd pretty much mastered the standard twist throttle of her dirt bike, I was a little worried that the thumb throttle of Kawasaki's KFX50 would be too foreign for her, ala the Razor dirt bike's quarter throttle mechanism she hates.  

Yeah, I shouldn't have been concerned. She took to the KFX50 so well, she's currently begging me to ride the full-size Brute Force 750 (review coming soon) I have parked next to her KFX50.

She does, however, have notes that I'd like to share. 

"It's easy [to control]," Gigi tells me as she mimics the thumb throttle. I asked her whether it was easy to switch between her bike and the ATV and she said, "It was easy. I'm good at riding." Confidence has never been something she struggles with.

That said, she told me that she thinks it would've been easier to start on the ATV compared to the Elektrode. "It's easier to balance [on the KFX50]. But I like how fast it is."

The KFX50 is pretty quick, as Kawasaki claims that the 49.5cc engine has a top speed of 15 mph. There is a throttle limiting screw that you can manually adjust to reduce it for parents who want a little more control over the ATV, too. "It's easy to learn on," she adds, "though when I first started, it felt wiggly and I almost went into the neighbor's yard. But then I got used to it."

"I like how when I let go of the gas it stops me."

She's talking about the engine braking, which is pretty aggressive. But that's good for kids who might not know where the brake lever is right from the get-go, as well as giving parents enough time to grab them before they hit the garage door or their brothers...

"But sometimes when I push [the bars] it makes my arms tired," Gigi says while wiggling her arms. The steering is unassisted, so if you're not going super fast, the bars are probably pretty heavy for her or your child. To that end, I've been having her race around our house and there are a couple of low-speed corners she has to get through. One is particularly tight and requires her to almost crawl, which is the corner she's talking about making her arms tired. 

As for the seating position, she said it was comfortable, though she's tall for her age and can fully plant her feet on the ATV's floorboards. She also has the habit of standing while going over rolling bumps or undulations—she's clearly been watching me far too closely. But that's more to better the ATV's suspension than just showing off. 

"It's bumpy," she tells me, referring to the suspension. I've ridden it back and forth to our shed a few times and it feels pretty well sprung, though I'm clearly not its intended demographic's weight, so it could very well be slightly bumpy for her. 

One of the only issues that both her and I see is there's no reverse gear.

Now, I don't know if you've ever tried teaching your kid how to ride an ATV or motorcycle, but they tend to get stuck a lot and you end up running over to them to get them unstuck. For the Elektrode, that's nothing, it's light.

The KFX50, however, is pretty heavy and with the hills that surround our house, those first few weeks were me pulling her off them a lot. It'd add complexity, sure, and likely more cash to the overall design as at present it's a direct drive and pretty simple. But it'd be nice. 

Gigi also dug the looks, though she told me, "I'd like it to have more pink like my bike." Her Elektrode has been decked out with Kawasaki's pink graphics kit. 

"I love it. My friends would like it too. Can we keep it?" she ended our conversation about the KFX50. If we wanted to, it'd set my wife and me back a cool $2,549 which, honestly, for as much as she's ridden it, isn't that bad. I feel like I've spent more on toys and other stuff that she's used far less.

Plus, it gets her out of the house, off her tablet, and having fun. And if she were anyone but my daughter, she'd probably not grow out of it for years to come. My two boys would be cool with this until they were probably 10 years old. So you'd have extended use of it and it wouldn't become like another new pair of shoes.

But since she is my clone, she wants something faster. And to borrow a phrase from Joe Exotic, "I may never financially recover from that."