02 - First encounter... of the Trikke kind.

In December 2012 we purchased, from a local person, a used polished-alloy "T5" Trikke for our 10yo daughter Sophie. It looked like something a little different compared to the “rip-sticks” of the day... and offered our daughter a stable ride and a point of difference compared to those rip-sticks/wiggleboards and kick-scooters that were becoming the latest craze for the kids. Sophie had a kick-scooter but that was becoming a little boring for her.

Example of the Alloy "T5" Trikke with flat handlebar

The T5 had huge obvious flat spots (previous user had obviously been doing high speed skids) on the rear Polyurethane (Poly) wheels which was not helping Sophie to learn how to self-propel, or even just enjoy it as a 3-wheeled kick scooter. 

Our T5 Poly wheels with Flat Spots.

After doing some online homework about this “Trikke” machine we had, I went in search of a New Zealand distributor to purchase replacement Poly wheels. No luck on the search... the NZ distributor was no longer operating. I tried to check at local bike shops and NZ online bike/scooter suppliers to see if they had the correct sized Poly wheels... they looked like they may be “standard”, but no, they were different to anything in the NZ market.

Latest (2016) T5 variant polyurethane wheel

Discovered how the Trikke polyurethane wheel sizing worked:

5″ – for models T5

6″ – for models T6, T67  (T67 Front wheel)

7″ – for models T7, T67 (T67 Rear Wheel, T78 Rear Wheel, T7)

8″ – for models T78, T8