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If you haven’t heard of “trike drifting,” it’s a fairly interesting oddball sport. You take a trike to the top of a hill, or get behind a van, go down the hill, and then use the stability and design of the drifting trike to pull off spins and the like. But what if you could take the whole “hill” part out of the equation? Here’s what you need to know about the Verrado, which does just that.
Yeah, it’s fairly risky, but you have to admit, it looks like quite a lot of fun. Of course, it’s fun limited to those of us with hills, so the question is how you get that onto a flat surface.
The Verrado has to take a pretty extreme beating. Not only does it need to be a fully functioning electric trike that supports a full-grown adult, it needs to have the electric motor and brakes to spin donuts on asphalt. The net result is a bike with a BMX fork, a tough 20″ wheel, and two karting wheels in the back protected with PVC, all with brushless hub motors powered by a lithium cobalt manganese battery. It even has regenerative braking to keep you rolling well past the standard charge times.
Believe or not, this particular drifting trike can range fairly far on that battery. At just forty-five minutes a charge, it can travel twelve miles. Sure, that’s not going to beat out your car any time soon, but it’s a fairly far distance for something like this to travel. And it reinforces a fairly key point that this isn’t a toy, but a professionally designed sports bike that happens to be built for drifting.
One important point to note before you buy, however, is that this is strictly an electric vehicle. Unlike most trikes, there’s no pedals or human-powered system, and no plans, right now, to add any. This is strictly either powered by a battery or powered by gravity, depending on which method you prefer and your local geography.
However you decide to go, whether you want to go spinning down a hill or be able to spin out on asphalt, you’d better be prepared to pay for it. To build your own starts at $225, but if you want a gravity-powered model, that’ll run you at least $500, depending on the package you choose. And if you want the full Verrado, you’ll need to pay, at minimum, nearly $1600.
So, yeah, this isn’t an idle commitment. On the other hand, this does have the distinct advantage of meaning that the campaign has already been completely funded on Kickstarter, with twenty-five days to go. At that rate, if you’re interested in drift triking, at least you know you’ll be getting what you order, and you’ll be able to spin down hills to your heart’s content.