I trikked three miles on mostly a four foot wide sidewalk the other day, a straight run.

Here's what I faced:

1. Over a hundred street and driveway "dips"

2. Iinnumerable trikking obstacles such as upraised squares of sidewalk, sand, leaves, rocks, twigs, repaired cracks, small holes

3. Traffic noise and worrying about the cars making a turn into me when I cross a street or driveway

4. Rotten asphalt, pebble-cobble-stone aged concrete, wheel chair access ramps that "just do not give a decent trikking angle of attack"

5. People walking in the same direction that have to be warned that I'm coming
blind alleys, blind corners, blind drivers

6. A steady wind against me.

To do 20 miles on my typical city street surfaces, sheesh, sorry, I'm not having even close to my expected fun volume, and the ride is dominated by a psychological dynamic of "ain't much fun so let's just get this done." My poor wrists just can't take those hard little smacks each time I cross a crack or hit a pebble....it's an all too frequent repetitive stress that is actually painful; it can sting to hit even a small crack when you're cranking your Trikke -- even with padded biking gloves and foam handle-bar grips

Now give me a smooth, crack-less, flat asphalt path that meanders through woods and streams, and yeah, now I can imagine going 20 miles. I have a couple local paths that do this for, well, one mile at most, so I drive over there and do these paths several times and "pretend" I've got some wonderful ocean hugging boardwalk like we see in the Trikke promotional videos. In Wisconsin, Trikking pleasures for me include, hooray, a giant parking lot getting completely re-done over at Target's.

This is why I'm waiting for the Trikke 12. My wish is that I find that the rubber tires and 12 inch diameter will give me several notches better traction on exactly the kind of surfaces I faced in my three mile ordeal. And, I would expect that average speed will be easily above 10 MPH under typical city conditions -- right now I'd say I average LESS than 5 MPH once I figure in all the stops and slowings that are forced upon me by the terrain.

If I can take a hard carve on twigs and sand, and if the average speed is, say, 5 MPH faster, then I can see the Trikke becoming a true touring beast.

Right now, on my Trikke 8 (8 sounds so little now, eh?) I have a local route I take that, funnily enough, has all the elements on my complaint list, but, because I have this route memorized, I have attuned myself to it and know all the ways to avoid 90% of its flaws.

On this route I know:

1. Where to conserve momentum, so I don't find myself suddenly scrambling to get-back-up-to-speed

2. Where to cross-over to the other side to avoid a bad section

3. What speeds I can push for in certain sections

4. Places where I can practice harder/deeper carving

5. Where I should avoid excess speed

6. Where I can practice slow-speed, ballet-like move

My goals are quite different on this route. I am not trying to get anywhere, so the moment by moment carving is my focus. When I get to the point where I have to cross over 75 feet of gravel-road (after going over the plank bridge over the river) I make lemonade out of it by practicing my "push-running" my Trikke through it and then hopping onto it, dramatically, when I hit asphalt again. Pardon the little boy in me, but it's like jumping on a galloping horse as we used to see in just about every cowboy film....feels romantically exhilarating -- a small bit of controlled danger to hop on the Trikke knowing your shoe bottoms are coated with sand and pebbles.

I have one corner area on the route where there's a traffic light and a "usually empty" parking lot. It's egoic, but man, I do get off on having those drivers stopped at the red light watching me carving in this small area with a Trikke's usual magical-motion that seems to be battery-powered because at slow speeds it is just about impossible for a casual, non-Trikke-owning, observer to see the small pushes I am giving it to keep going. When the light changes to green, you can just feel them straining to take their eyes off the Trikke and start driving again. The Trikke is just a lovely poetry to watch.

This "red-light district" has opened my eyes to slow trikking. I want to recommend to the group that you all try this: find a small area...maybe only as small as 20 by 20 feet of nice smooth surface. My chosen area is slanted, but because it's smooth, it's not a problem for me to pirouette, gyrate, loop, twist, carve, circle, twirl and swivel in what can only be called "dancing." And, the momentum never goes below a certain value as I constantly arc about as if hearing an inner waltz. The effortlessness of these moments is simply alluring -- even hypnotic enough to lessen my trikking safety-first mind-set to a degree that I find myself breaking rules...like leaning too far back, or not seeing my carve path often enough to miss small pebbles. It's a wonderful thing to just meld into this harmony. Try it. Practice it. Your ego is going to get off on it when you see how artistic you feel mastering this Trikke dancing.

Idea: get the Trikke people to make a commercial. It's gotta be the Blue Danube being played in a giant ballroom as tuxed and gowned couples waltz around while a trikker carves between them -- the Trikke being the dance-partner. I see this in my mind, and it's so sweet a visual. Ahhhh.

Raining here today, wrists sore from yesterday's hard push, and here am I saying, "Okay, I can take it easy on the carves, and what's a little moisture!"

Sigh....

Edg