Feel like a third wheel? Try the sporty Trikke

It looks like a mutant scooter, rides like skis on pavement and has a name that could be a creature from “Star Trek”: It’s the Trikke -- pronounced trike -- and despite its appeal as a cool outdoor ride, it also can provide some fitness benefits.

Trikke: Like a scooter, the three-wheeled device (invented by a Brazilian automotive design engineer) requires a one-foot kickoff. But a Trikke doesn’t need that constant pushing to keep it going. It’s propelled by standing on the V-shaped foot platform and moving it forward with side-to-side motions, almost like downhill skiing. It also has handbrakes. Although he’s never ridden a Trikke, Philip Clifford, an exercise physiologist with the Medical College of Wisconsin, says it has potential as a good aerobic workout. By using the body to propel it and the upper body to steer, “if you continue to do it for reasonable lengths of time, about 10 to 30 minutes, I think you can call it an aerobic exercise.”

Price: The Trikke comes in three models, is priced from $200 to $300 and is available at www.trikke.com, or at Wheel World in Culver City, (310) 391-5251.