Posted by Robert Dilley on January 19, 1998 at 20:23:24:
While we were digging out from a further few inches of snow (those of you who treat it as something new and exciting should try living with the stuff six months of the year) my eldest daughter raised the interesting question: "Why are British toboggans built on runners?" All those my daughters have, and all that you see around here, are flat with, at most, fluted bases. Runners would simply sink into the snow and stick. My tentative answer was that the Beckfoot sled, the one made for the Ds (and the one we found in a shed of a rented house in Devon years ago) were designed for a thin coating of snow on grass or ice, not for deep Canadian snow. Anyone got any better suggestion? What kinds do they have in Japan? In New Zealand? A favourite with kids here is the "Crazy Carpet" (or "Krazy Karpet") -- simply a thick, highly-coloured plastic sheet with holes at one end as a handle.