What’s a Trikke?

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a video must be worth millions, right? So to spare me from typing out a million words you wouldn’t read anyway—

(I KNOW I’m a very entertaining writer, but I still doubt you’d read a million words. Heck, the novel I wrote is only about 85,000 words long.)

(And only a VERY few people have read that!)

(No, it was never published and is not available for purchase, but thanks for asking.)

—click THIS SITE and watch the advertising video that plays immediately. The site is for the Houston, Texas, dealer that sells Trikkes. The manufacturer’s site is www.trikke.com (go figure).

Carol happened to see an infomercial for these things a couple of months ago while setting our DVD machine to record a televised pro golf event. She was intrigued, checked them out thoroughly on the web, and talked me into getting us one. We ordered online an adult sized “starter model” (the T-78cs) for $220 (on special), assembled it when UPS dropped it off, and began figuring out how to make the thing go.

For us beginners (and grandparents at that) it wasn’t too hard to make it go slowly, but going up a very slight incline or into a headwind was impossible. But we kept at it, because written reviews from other seniors indicated that it just takes time. After about three weeks we were pretty good on the flat, and could climb a VERY gentle slope. And you know, darned if it wasn’t fun!

The thing gives you a good whole body workout (including aerobics; I’m puffing pretty hard by the time I’ve gone a couple of miles on it), but it’s so much fun you just want to keep going.

To be honest I guess part of the fun is the looks everyone gives you. Most people have never seen them and are intrigued. Passing cars will slow to the same speed we’re going (about 10 mph) and the occupants will just stare. Occasionally they’ll roll down a window and ask us what “it” is and where we got it.

After 5 weeks we had both gotten good enough that we wanted to ride together. Hmm, I think that’ll require a second Trikke.

So Carol did more research and we ended up buying (from the Houston dealer whose web site led off this post) TWO of the T-8 Sport models. We were now the proud owners of THREE of these Trikke things. We folded up the starter model, stashed it, and began riding the others around the neighborhood. We’re now able to go for several miles and even up some gentle slopes without passing out.

So, we wondered, what are we going to do with that like-new starter model we have as a spare? Can we sell it on eBay or Craigslist? I kept the original box and packing materials, but then I’d have to disassemble it and ship it, and that’d be a pain. Maybe we can sell it locally, you think?

Well, guess what? We sold it today!

We’d been riding our Trikkes around the block when a car pulled up beside Carol and the lady driving asked her about the machine. We told our story and mentioned that we had a like-new extra. She lit up, obviously enthused. We got it out and showed it to her. She came back later with her husband and two kids to look at it and they bought it on the spot.

Their kids, a 12 year old boy and a slightly older sister, each got on the thing and were riding it in 5 minutes better than we had done after two weeks!

Darned kids, always showing off.

So, I’d tell you more but it’s early evening, the wind is down, and it’s warm outside. We’re going Trikking!