I was out speed skating on the lake the other day. I was blazing along at like 20mph and it wasn’t feeling like much work. Sometimes I was using ski poles. My daughter and her friend were also out there, toodling around.
I was thinking that I could get more of a resistance workout if I was pulling a sled…
What if there was a sled that two big people could ride in that a skier could pull? I’m thinking there’d be skis on it for snow, plus a runners options for ice. Or maybe a combo setup of skis with keel-like runners down the center like the Norwegian Spark sleds?
Maybe there could also be tails extending from the back and a hand-rest — like a dogsled — so someone could ride on the back and kick and help propel it on the ice/snow using cleats. ?
Maybe the “traces” could be set up so that TWO skiers could pull!
So ya get a couple folks who just want to luxuriate and enjoy the winter. They bundle up in the SLEIGH and our human-horses do the rest.
Could ya have the “traces” be rigid — so you could go over hill’n’dale and not have the sleigh ram into the skier(s)? You’d also need to have shock-absorption built in. Like on XC ski pulks.
I made a pulk once to pull our kids. It worked great. I slid a dowel inside aluminum conduit and attached it with bungies to absorb my lunging strides. If I crossed the poles and attached them to a backpack hipbelt it was a sweet rig and went around corners perfectly.
Ski-joring is popular — where you have dogs pull you on skis. But I always preferred to do my own skiing. I suppose it becomes fun when you get dogs who pull faster than you can ski — or horses! That’s another way they do it. Anyway, people are cheaper and easier to manage than animals these days, so I say let’s make a People Sleigh!
I suppose I could get one of those barge-like ice-fishing sleds and bolt really long skis to the bottom and glue a pad inside. –Like my brother’s ski-sled idea. Only make it big for 2 people (why am I fixated on hauling two people? 2 more fun than 1?).
A “musher” on the tails could also help shove a heavy sled up hills that skiers might be laboring on.
