New here, with a John Deere 717A, my first ZTR mower....

Just picked up a nice used 717A today.... hoping to have a much better mowing experience than my trusty but old and worn out Troy built rider.

:welcome:

If you find problems controlling the mower initaly then use your natural hand to do all the steering and your off hand purely to control the speed.
After a short while your brain will have gained enough muscle memory to allow you to just go where you look.
If necessary after a 1/ dozen mows swap hand functions and always watch where you are going not your hand position.
Trying to "think and move" both hands at one time is a tad more than the average brain can cope with so you will always tend to be over compensating.
Splitting the functions to different hands will allow you to link hand position to mower movements in no time flat.
Under no circumstances use the throttle to vary the speed the engine must be running at full speed all the time.

I mowed for 3 hours after I unloaded it when I got home! So fantastic compared to the old lawn tractor way. The steering was very natural to me, it instinctively made sense and was very easy. I don't know why, other than I have made my living horseback, and you have to think of all four quarters of the horse, controlled by both hands, legs, and feet working in a coordinated but independent effort doing about 6 things simultaneously.... anyway, it was a piece of cake, and mowing is absolutely fun and not a chore.... 18 years of the old mower, it is great to have this one to utilize..

congrats on the new to you find! haha welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome and advice, bertsmobile1 and Glyn Robinson! I was lucky the owners manual came with my used mower, and every day I want to mow more! ha it is so completely fantastic compared to the lawn tractor method.... I have a large large yard, and have to mow around barns, kennels, corrals, and a long driveway, so it is GREAT! I see all these posts with folks needing a bit of help and getting it, and while I anticipate a lot of mowing with little trouble, I am glad to see good folks willing to advise here....Good deal..

:thumbsup: