Allies and Adversaries has conveniently given me Tusken Raiders just as I was working on a Tatooine module for an upcoming convention. I would like to take this opportunity to try out mounted combat with banthas and dewbacks, but one of the things I am unsure of is how to handle mounted characters vs unmounted characters. My regular group seldom did vehicle-based combat, and we never were in a position to deal with person-level and vehicle-level combat at the same time.

Both those animals have max speed 1, so my initial thought is that a Ride maneuver for them covers the same distance as a maneuver for a PC on foot. Being mounted does not seem to give any real advantages over being on foot in that case; it's really just flavor. That's nice for me... no new rules to worry about.

But let's say that a rider was on a mount with max speed 2... what does that mean in person-sized range bands? I am perfectly comfortable with and capable of fudging these sorts of things to make an exciting scene of mounted warriors charging down the side of a dune, but I would like to understand how these things are intended to be implemented before deciding to just streamline things.

There is a fair bit of advice in Stay on Target, the AOR Aces book (to go with the Beast Rider Spec)

Just glanced over the book, it doesn't seem to cover this. Maybe another book compares vehicle speed to PC speed? I think You have the right idea though. Also, beyond just flavor, Attacking a mounted character and not the mount, could be a targeted attack. So it adds some meat shield.