A classic.

The mower is excellent. I love it. It's not my first, but it's been a decade or so since I went all lawn-retro and this thing is even better than my first time...so to speak. Thing to realize about using a push-reel mower is that a) you kinda hafta have mostly bermuda grass, b) you have to have your lawn pretty much under control to begin with, and c) there's no such thing as mowing too much. Like, with a regular gas mower, you feel stupid running over stuff you mowed a couple days ago, but with a push-reel mower, that's not only a good thing, but you can probably actually see the clippings flying. Which makes you feel significantly less stupid. That being said, it's got the same problem my first one had. See, in these mowers, the cutting height is controlled by the height of the back wheels, or rollers, or whatever. Rollers, in this one. They're mounted on little plastic legs that, for reasons known only to push-reel mower designers, only have one bolt apiece to hold them on to the chassis of the mower. Basic physics will tell ya that a single bolt that isn't placed at the exact point of stress will result in sideways shear force on the plastic leg, and it does, and the manufacturer's answer is to put a little lip on the soft plastic leg, which does basically nothing after the first time you hit deep grass because the metal chassis cuts straight through the little plastic lip like that's what it was made for. The upshot is, hey, ALL these mowers have this problem. But it IS a problem. So, take my advice and invest in a couple extra 5/16 bolts, make 'em say 1 3/4 inches long, and then put a second bolt through each stupid little plastic roller leg. This will prevent it from pivoting around the first bolt, and let it deal with the sideways torque, and voila, as them French say, you will now be able to apply actual shoving force to the handle without discovering your mower suddenly defaulting to cutting at 1/2 inch when you'd set it to 2 inches. Your grass will thank you. All of that being said, I still give the sucka 4 stars. I mean, it does what it says it'll do better than gas mowers that cost twice as much. These things are awesome.

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