Friday, July 31, 2009

Trikke Hill Climbing in Idaho



Came across this dedicated lady on TrikkeTalk. Here's a great clip of Cheryl from Idaho working her way up her first hill on her T12. Cheryl does a great job here! Love the music and what's great about the clip is that she's demonstrating perfectly how effortlessly (though it's not!) it looks when you climb a hill with good trikking technique. It can be done, and you don't have to be a long term hill shredder to find success.

First, you can see that Cheryl is engaging both her upper and lower body. Her arms are keeping control of the handle bars--she isnt turning inwards too far and risking jack knife. Her pecs are working to add the upper body strength needed to work her handlebars, so the front wheel returns back and forth to the correct position (see our video on "Keeping the line in mind). You can also see her push slightly forward, leaning her body towards the front of the trikke with each turn.

Her feet are sweeping forward in the invisible motion needed to maintain trikke forward momentum. She's not pushing backwards with her feet and breaking momentum, instead she's driving her feet and importantly, the trikke forward with each lean of her lower body. Her core remains tight as she maintains the right balance to put all of this together for the forward momentum that helps propel her up the hill.

Finally, she ties it all together by finding and staying in trikke rhythm. Rhythm is king (or queen in this case). Notice when she starts going up the incline, although she starts to work harder, her rythmn stays steady and therefore so does her form. Great job and as Cheryl said, "on to the next hill!" As she get stronger and stronger, hills will start getting flatter and flatter. Carve Diem!

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