Neighbor Sue got one of those tricycle looking things; a trikke.
No pedals. No pushing. You make it go by turning, leaning, and weight shifting. Best I could describe the motion is, it’s like rollerblading, but with handlebars, throw in a little turn carving from skiing, and it has brakes. It looks really easy on the video.
I have devoted a few minutes to it every day for the last week. From my efforts so far, I’ve discovered that:
Not all things are as they appear. Riding the trikke is not as easy as it looks.
Knowing that the theory behind the propulsion has to do with conservation of angular momentum doesn’t make it any easier to figure out how to make it go.
The trikke is best used on perfectly flat smooth surfaces.
Riding the trikke, you’ll discover slight gradients in the road that are not visible to the naked eye. It works best when you’re going downhill, even if only slightly.
You’ll discover which direction the wind is coming from even if the air appears to be perfectly calm. It works best going downwind, even if only slightly.
When you first get on the trikke, nothing happens. You turn the handlebars back and forth and it moves a little. If you use it as a skateboard with handles and give it a few pushes with your foot first, you have a better chance of feeling what’s supposed to happen when you’re riding. Once you start to get the leaning and weight shifting down, people comment that you make it look easy. Presumably, at some point, it actually will be as easy as it looks.
There are moments. The rhythm finds you. It does feel easy. The moment passes.
But there is hope.
