Did you even see any sleds with metal runners? Recently, a similarly elderly friend and I were at a similar event in Maine (another state with a long and deep Winter tradition) and we had the only two wood and metal-runner sleds among maybe a hundred others. Mine is an actual Flexible Flyer. We were easily three times faster than any of the plastic trays and the only ones who reached the snowbank bumper at the end; all the others had to hump their sleds to get down at all. We were among the very few who walked back up, while almost all the rest rode a snowmobile which also towed their sleds, which they were not allowed to ride on for the trip back up. The curvy downhill was over a quarter-mile long, though a shortcut over a field was available for our return. You can tell it made an impression on me. Thanks for the reminder of it. So, what has changed in our current culture?
It was all plastic sleds as far as I saw at this event. I was a kid in the 1960s and basically lived through the transition from wooden sleds with metal runners and all wood toboggans to the plastic snow sleds that are dominant today. When things are icy, nothing beats a metal-runnered sled, but they bog down in deep fluffy snow. For all around use, the plastic sleds really worked better because the worked in a wider range of conditions. They were also cheaper to make and lighter to pull up hill. One thing that was nice at yesterday's event was that everybody was schlepping their own sleds up the hill.
That's right about real sleds bogging down in fluffy snow except that when we kids went out to the hill it took us about ten minutes of fun to trample it all down into a good fast run, good for the next ten hours 'til suppertime, like much of your hill here. No problem.
Did you even see any sleds with metal runners? Recently, a similarly elderly friend and I were at a similar event in Maine (another state with a long and deep Winter tradition) and we had the only two wood and metal-runner sleds among maybe a hundred others. Mine is an actual Flexible Flyer. We were easily three times faster than any of the plastic trays and the only ones who reached the snowbank bumper at the end; all the others had to hump their sleds to get down at all. We were among the very few who walked back up, while almost all the rest rode a snowmobile which also towed their sleds, which they were not allowed to ride on for the trip back up. The curvy downhill was over a quarter-mile long, though a shortcut over a field was available for our return. You can tell it made an impression on me. Thanks for the reminder of it. So, what has changed in our current culture?
ReplyDeleteHi Michael,
ReplyDeleteIt was all plastic sleds as far as I saw at this event. I was a kid in the 1960s and basically lived through the transition from wooden sleds with metal runners and all wood toboggans to the plastic snow sleds that are dominant today. When things are icy, nothing beats a metal-runnered sled, but they bog down in deep fluffy snow. For all around use, the plastic sleds really worked better because the worked in a wider range of conditions. They were also cheaper to make and lighter to pull up hill. One thing that was nice at yesterday's event was that everybody was schlepping their own sleds up the hill.
That's right about real sleds bogging down in fluffy snow except that when we kids went out to the hill it took us about ten minutes of fun to trample it all down into a good fast run, good for the next ten hours 'til suppertime, like much of your hill here. No problem.
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