Old hands here will be familiar with my introduction of brake starts and turn starts, but I have some other tricks recently discovered for the bicycle. I'll start with a recap of the brake start and turn start...

A brake start involves coming to a complete stop, and then starting up really slowly without that sudden surge of speed. It is useful for fine-grained control in tight spots. Stop, then apply the front brake (the 2 button on the Wiimote). Now start pedalling. The bike comes upright, and you can move off at a slow pace by slowing your pedalling and releasing the brake. This does not work with the back brake (the + control).

A turn start involves stopping, then releasing the brake and tilting the Wiimote as if you are turning. When you have tilted it far enough (near-ish to vertical), the bike will start up and turn really tight, even though you are not pedalling.

The first new trick completes the unholy triad: the brake turn. Pedal along at a reasonably high speed, then simultaneously apply the back brake and make a turn. The bike will fish-tail, and give you a huge rate of turn. Releasing the brake and centring the turn will send you off in a new direction. You will lose some speed, but you can make up for it by shortening distance instead.

The brake turn has a serious disadvantage for flag hunters: it is difficult to control the amount of turn, and may send you off in a direction that costs more distance than you save by doing the tight turn.

The next tricks exploit the brake turn:
* If you do it when pelting along, especially down a steep slope, you can get the bike to turn all the way around.
* You can also do it when landing from a blue 'launcher' ramp, which is actually how I discovered it in the first place.

In the world of more conventional manoeuvres, I recently rode up one of the hand-rails that leads up to the top of the central stepped-pyramid at the Temple Ruins. This was fun because it is much narrower than the main part of the ramp, and an error makes you fall off.

In the same vein, I have also ridden round the hotel. Not so much of an achievement, I hear you say, just avoid the swimming pool... But not this time. At the base of the wall is a narrow strip of paving slabs, only barely wider than the bike. I rode around that without falling off.

And the last one is where I fell in the sea underneath the island. I rode onto the small triangle of grass by the Duckling Lake, the one with a balloon on it, and skimmed down the near-vertical cliff at the side. Normal enough, we've all done it at least once. However, this time I must have managed to skip past contact with the ground, and gradually sank into the road surface heading towards the tunnel. It was very weird seeing just my Mii's head riding along the road. Eventually I separated from the ground and fell down into the sea, but without the shrinking circle effect.

And I fell off the rooftops. "That's nothing!" I hear you say, but it is more interesting when you fall into the crack between the first and second buildings (where a red ramp has been placed to help you cross a road below). That red ramp does not reach all the way across the road, and it is possible to fall into the gap.

Anyway, leaving aside ordinary silliness like riding on the rooftops, leaping onto the side wall of the starting circle and then riding along it, and stuff like that, what have you done?

Just for fun: climb to the highest grassy patch on the mountain, the one with the blocked cave. Pick up the dog and pedal at one side of the blocked cave (either side) and pull a wheelie. Keep pedaling as if you are going to climb straight up the mountainside. Your viewpoint should change as if you are underground, looking straight up at your mii. The dog will walk on the "ground" right over you.

Alternative turnaround strategy: when going to pop the balloon at the Duckling Lake grassy patch, pedal full speed into the balloon from the left side and "hit" the cliff in back while turning steeply to the right (don't stop pedaling). If done right, you will turn around without much, if any, slowdown.

That sounds really cool - I'll have to try that on my next balloon run. Thanks!

One of the things I like to do is, when I am heading towards the mouth of the entrance to the steel ramp tunnel (the entrance at the top of the mountain), is to go as fast as I can and then just clip the top of the tunnel opening as I go in: if done right, I take air as I enter the tunnel, and land further down the ramp.

Another thing I like to do is go down the mountainside near where the great tunnel entrance is. There is a ramp there, and I hit it at a good speed and turn my bike so that I just miss hitting a tree. It's a blast.

I still like looking for useful death plummets, too, but that's another story.

Interesting tricks! Don't know if I mentioned that one time while coming from the lighthouse across to the grassy ramp outside the metal ramp tunnel, I turned left a little too late to go up the ramp and bumped into the mountain instead. Suddenly it was as if the mountain were a sheet of textured cardboard and there was Duckling Lake on the other side of it. However, before I could think of trying to get into the lake, I had left trying to recover my lost time.

OK, I have found another one. Start in the top of the town, where the launcher ramp shoots you up into the starting circle. There are many fun things you can do with this ramp.
* Brake turns on landing from a normal takeoff. Choosing the right line allows you to turn into the starting line from the side of your choice.
* A slight left-to-right diagonal on the takeoff can place you on top of the wall at the edge of the circle.
* A stronger (but not too strong) diagonal places you on the normal ground just outside the circle.
* Stronger still and you crash into the retaining wall.
* Hold the Wiimote in a turn while you do the stronger diagonal and you can crash into the wall going backwards..

Really, I do have a life, honest!

You do have a life cynique but I think it is centered around a balance board Keep em coming though!!