Most people, when they consider buying a quad as a leisure toy, look first at the high-performance sports quads with their responsive, hard-revving, liquid-cooled engines, multi-adjustable long-travel suspension and angular, aggressive-looking bodywork.

That’s fine, as long as you have plenty of wide-open space in which to give them their head and the skill to control them under extreme circumstances – most big sports quads will top 160km/h (that’s 100mph).

But in these days of urban sprawl the spaces are no longer wide open, and you can only dash up and down the same stretch of dirt road so many times before you get bored out of your skull

In the low and mid-range it feels at as if it could pull itself straight up a wall.

Which is when you start looking at your local 4×4 trails.

Sports quads don’t handle serious off-road trails very well – they haven’t the torque, traction or stability for it – but most utility quads are available with on-demand all-wheel drive, sturdy bodywork and deeply padded, ultra-comfortable seats – they are after all, intended to be ridden all day.

And they will go just about anywhere you can walk, causing minimum damage to the environment as they do. The impact of a quad’s big, soft tyres on the ground is so slight that if one ran over your foot it probably wouldn’t hurt you.

It’s powered by a relatively unsophisticated, 348cc air-cooled single that I thought would be a little underpowered for the rocky slopes, but not a bit of it.

The engine is tuned for torque; it sounds a little strained at full chat but in the low and mid-range it feels at as if it could pull itself straight up a wall without breaking a sweat.

It drives through a rather grabby centrifugal clutch and belt-driven constantly variable transmission, just like a scooter.

Simple controls

The controls couldn’t be simpler; there’s a gear lever on the left of the body with three positions – forward, neutral and reverse – and a push-button on the right-hand switchgear for the transfer case: out for two-wheel drive, in for four-wheel traction.

Then you hit the thumb throttle and just go – just about anywhere. The only thing you have to remember is to apply both brakes before you change gears. You can even change from two to four-wheel drive “on the fly”.

Because I didn’t have to worry about operating a clutch or gears I was able to concentrate on where I was going; I’d forgotten how challenging the steeper bits can be.

Unpredictable changes

There’s little loose sand, it’s mostly sharp-edged, flinty rock or hard-packed gravel, offering good traction but with sudden and wildly unpredicatble changes of inclination.

Even the 245mm of ground clearance and 172mm of suspension travel offered by the Bruin wasn’t enough on occasion.

I bottomed the chassis on a rock and went nowhere until we picked the thing up bodily and moved it forward over the obstacle – not very difficult as this flyweight (by 4×4 standards) tips the scales at only 244.6kg.

All the old rules of 4x4ing apply just as much to quads as they do to big SUVs – approach an obstacle as fast as necessary and as slow as possible, look before you leap, etc. But the Bruin will go into and out of places bigger vehicles won’t, just as slow and easy as you like.

I found the steering noticeably heavier in 4×4 mode; it would have been very tiring to ride like that all day so I used front-wheel power only when Yamaha couldn’t cope in normal mode.

Opposite lock

On the wide, flat farm roads it quickly went up to about 70km/h before the steering got a little squirrelly; in two-wheel drive a big application of throttle on corners would spin the rear wheels every time for some very gratifying (and easily controllable) opposite-lock steering as the back end stepped way, way out.

It’s not unstoppable, of course; the rear axle is solid (which is the major reason quads cannot be licensed for the road) but there are non-lockable differentials on the transfer case and front axle. If you get it standing still with one front wheel off the ground that wheel will spin merrily and you’ll go nowhere.

If you can rock it forward until both front wheels get traction, however, it will pull itself gently out. I tried it a couple of times; sometimes it worked, sometimes not – but bear in mind that I am a rank amateur on all-wheel drive quads and we were riding through places where I couldn’t walk.

It went bounding up some nasty rocky slopes, grabbing traction where it could, but always under control; coming down was a matter of hanging my bodyweight as far back as possible and using the built-in engine braking – unusual on a belt drive but very welcome.

Laws of physics

But no matter how competent, the Yamaha is subject to the laws of physics; eventually a fellow journalist rolled it on a tricky side-slope punctuated by jagged rocks.

He got plenty banged up and wound up making a trip to the emergency room but the only damage to the Bruin was some scratches on the plastic bodywork and the handlebars moved a little to the rear in their clamps.

The quad actually went right over and wound up back on its wheels; we simply rode it out after applying the necessary first aid to its rider, which speaks volumes for its durability.

All in one piece

It’s built on a tough tubular-steel frame, with full bodywork in shock-resistant plastic. At the front there’s a built-in bull bar and cargo rack, all in one piece, protecting the headlights and the front of the body from whatever comes along.

A big flat rack behind the saddle protects the rear wings and provides plenty of room to pack camping gear, braai grids – and your first-aid box.

The seat is long, broad and deeply padded, superbly comfortable for one and more than big enough for two – but take note that the Yamaha is only rated for a solo rider.

The instrumentation is practically non-existent; the neat black fascia has room for a full set but houses only a single light that shines green when the transmission is in neutral and red when it’s in reverse – and that’s it.

Fly by the seat of your pants:

And that’s all it needs; that’s how simple the Bruin is to ride. You can genuinely fly it by the seat of your pants, focusing on where you’re going rather than what the machine is doing.

It’s great for really strenuous off-roading and an ideal learner machine; it’ll take you to places you won’t believe, without damaging them – Grin Factor and Green Factor all in one package.

Can’t say fairer than that, now can I?