Local Motors’ Electric Drift Trike is a Thing of Awesome

Built by crowdsourcing favorites Local Motors, the electric, adult-sized BigWheel you see here is called the Verrado- and it is every kind of awesome there is.

There are very few feelings in life like the thrill you got when you pulled your first 360 on your BigWheel. Like so many of the most amazing things that will ever happen to you, you were probably too young to remember it- and there’s no way to find that feel again. Or, is there?

That’s what the sport of drift triking is all about: re-capturing the thrills of your BigWheel-inspired youth in old age. To that end, Chris and I, both, have professed that we’d be willing to die on (or, rather, being thrown off of) a high-quality drift trike. “High quality”, of course, being a necessity- and that’s where Local Motors comes in.

After building the top-shelf Rally Fighter and introducing the board-track inspired Cruiser a short while ago, Local Motors should need no introduction. For their drift trike, Local stuffs a MagicPie 3-hub brushless motor and a lithium cobalt manganese battery into the bike’s “big” 20-inch front wheel. Out back, five-inch steel wheels are fitted with 10-inch kart tires for grip- and those are wrapped in PVC plastic sleeves almost an inch thick for drifting. Disc brakes with a KERS-like regenerative braking system help bring the trike to a stop in a hurry if things get too hairy.

I have a feeling, however, that hitting the brakes on one of these Local drift trike deals would be morally wrong.

I’ll need about $1600 to find out, however. That’s what Local Motors is asking for a new Verrado, which is scheduled to start shipping out to its well-heeled customers in June. (Get it? See what I did there? Well-heeled … Ha!)

Source | Photos: Gizmag.

This Adult Big Wheel Kickstarter Needs Your Money (w/ video)

As far as I’m concerned, the best thing in the world was my Big Wheel. I pre-date the Green Machine, so the original Big Wheel (and, later, the KITT-wheel) was my ride. In the years since, I have spent some Serious seat time in some of the world’s most powerful cars – from 80s Ferraris and Porsches to Mosler’s incredible Raptors and MT900s to RENNtech’s awesome twin-turbo V12 Mercedes and the Switzer’s nauseatingly fast ethanol GTRs. Along the way, I’ve ridden shotgun around famous racetracks with hotshoes named Kendall, Lewis, Andretti, and Scheckter. In my private time, I’m on 2 wheels as much as possible, because such automotive privilege as I’ve enjoyed has left me jaded and warped, and the maddening slowness of the road-going automobile grinds into my sanity in a way that very few people seem able to understand. All of that – from the GT1 racecars to the 8-second drag missiles – pales in comparison to the thrill I felt skidding sideways along my aunt and uncles’ Miami driveway on plastic tires. I’ve spent years talking about building a proper, full-scale, 180+ lb. adult Big Wheel. Now, ONDA Cycles is here, selling me that very thing.

Here’s the infographic summary.

ONDA, at this point, is little more than a dream. The company’s building up an audience, though, and its Kickstarter page is well on its way to making that dream a reality for Tyler Hadziki, who will see that each hand-formed steel and aluminum adult Big Wheel trike is beautifully built and gets to you (more or less) in one piece. At $350, shipped, the ONDA cycle is pretty competitively priced – right along with the lower-end of the fixies the kids seem to like so much these days.

As for me, the only questions I have about this thing are about my trike’s color – and whether or not I’ll be killed this season or next season!

You can check out the ONDA cycle project’s official Kickstarter video, below. Enjoy!

Source | Photos: ONDA Cycles, via Kickstarter