Posted by Dave Thewlis on January 23, 1998 at 21:30:05:
In Reply to: Toboggans posted by Robert Dilley on January 19, 1998 at 20:23:24:
Another issue is the type of runner. I grew up in Maryland which isn't precisely
cold winter country but we got enough snow to have sleds and such. Most children's
sleds had runners no more than 1/2 inch wide with a slightly concave bottom cross
section, so that (on ice) you had more or less four thin lines to slide on, with
a minimum of friction. Also that type of runner will grip on ice since it has a thin
blade edge, where something thicker just won't.
When I was about ten we found (I have no idea where) an aluminum bullet-shaped thing
which I always thought of as a toboggan rather than a sled. It had a cowl on the nose
and steerable nose runners with a sort of steering handle in the cowling. Most importantly
though, both the nose runners and the long body runners were made of tubing with a flat oval
cross-section about 1 to 1-1/2 inches wide, so the track on the surface was about 1-1/2 inches
for each runner. This was definitely built for navigation on snow, since the runners were
totally useless on ice as they wouldn't grip at all, and when I tried I generally found myself
proceeding sideways.