Gang,

Lately, hills have been a COMPLETELY different experience for me. I have no doubt that the twelve will have different handling characteristics, but these days for me, hills can be approached with MANY different carving strategies. And I'm not worried about the twelve and hills.

Let me explain.

When I first started trikking a year ago, I kicked like mad and arm pumped as hard as I could back and forth to get up a mild hill.

Then I learned that going up a hill is like tacking against the wind in a sailboat -- since gravity is the suction power that fills the Trikke's "sail." And that led me to going back and forth in these wide arcs and on every carve trying to carve up the hill another six inches or so while traveling yards sideways.

Then I learned that the more precisely I honed my timing of my weight shifting the more of my mass was put "behind the carve" and this gave me more momentum to get up the hill, and so I didn't have to tack sideways as much.

THEN, FINALLY, I "got it." Something clicked inside me a couple months ago, and now I go up that same hill IN SLOW MOTION and ALMOST WITHOUT ANY CARVING AT ALL. How? I'll end up writing an essay about this, but the short answer is that I am so "with it" on the weight transfer that when I want to, I can go up a hill like stepping up one step at a time -- hard to explain, but imagine a step ladder laying down on the surface and you are walking up the hill on those rungs. Small steps like that. If someone is walking next to me, no problem, I can go WHATEVER speed they are going....no matter how slowly.

I am telling all of you -- as hard as I can -- to practice slow motion trikking. It really gets you to be in harmony with the Trikke's basic move -- a move that allows for an incredible range of "with-it-ness" such that even a poorly executed move "works pretty good at helping the Trikke move forward," and a perfect motion works at the slowest speeds.

Just get someone to walk with you while you're on the Trikke. It'll force you to learn how to keep up with that person without getting out of earshot.

At first you merely carve swaths back and forth in front of the person, or you're doing loops around them, but gradually you just try going slower and slower, and the Trikke will perfect your moves ever more subtly.

Now, the twelve's "spongy-ness" should, indeed, absorb energy, but no way can it harm my "slow trikking move." As for my fast trikking move, well, I can do the slow move in fast motion! Or, since I will have all that wonderful rubber's gripping power, maybe I will "just muscle up a hill and to hell with nuance." By this I mean, that if I am freed of the fear of having that awful sudden lurching from hitting a pebble with my front wheel on a hard carve, then on 12 rubber, I can "have faith" and really put some oomph into my weight transfers without any fear of slippage. This is almost t impossible without rubber tires. On a Trikke 8, going uphill and trying to muscle it, I have to put far more weight on the front wheel to keep it from skidding. Only the stickiest of asphalt allows me to power up a hill on my 8. The slicker the surface, the harder the hill.

So, until I get on my 12 and find out for sure, who knows? But, for now, the grip it and rip it twelve is imagined here to be the culmination of over a decade of Gildo research. The Roadster will truly own the roads.

Edg