It's called a Trikke

Have you seen Ardis and Jerry Romero riding down the street on funny looking scooters? It resembles the scooter we have out in the garage with a handle bar and a flat board for your shoe to rest on, but instead of paddling with your other leg, this Trikke has two boards so each foot can glide you down the road. This is best described by the manufacturer as a three-point carving vehicle since you push out with your legs and lean into the direction you want to go.

I stopped Ardis and Jerry the other day and they explained how it works. It seems a lot like a Rollerblade-type leg motion or cross country skiing. They are manufactured in California and come in five different sizes. The T5ws design which was made for children up to the age of 10 won an award from both the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award in 2004 and The National Parenting Center 2004 Seal of Approval. Ardis loves her 12-inch wheels because she said it makes it a lot easier to go up a grade. These are not made to ride up steep hills, you'd have to get off and push them up in that case. Their two young boys ride them also and have perfected the art.

Because the Trikke collapses, it makes it easy to take with you. The Romero family loves to load up the car and drive to Camp Richardson at Lake Tahoe's southwest corner just north of the Y. Ardis says they often will ride for 8 miles along the paved bicycle trails there. When I saw how much fun they were having I thought I might enjoy this form of exercise until I looked on the Web page and saw they now make an electric Trikke called the Tribred, which can go 12 miles on a full charge.

For those who love to ski, they make a Skki with the same idea but with skis instead of wheels. Skiing with handle bars sounds very different. It takes a creative mind to keep coming up with new ways to entice us to exercise.

If you think this sounds like fun, you can get more information at www.trikke.com or Ardis says to look at www.craigslist.com for a used one and save some money.

Pinon Hills Elementary

Pinon Hills Elementary School is having an Ag Day on Oct. 1 so look in a future column when I'll tell you all about the animals that were shared as well as other information on agriculture.

n Lisa Welch is a Johnson Lane resident and can be reached at 267-9350.