skiing without snow

[nosnowski]

Hi everyone,
I live in Australia where we have pretty poor quality snow and short skiing seasons lasting at best three months. For the past few years I have been thinking how we could enjoy something that at least remotely resembles skiing. I tried rolling tread based grass ski and looked at many other products such as roller ski, Herb carvers etc. but they were not really what I expected in terms of ability to carve. I finally came up with a device that can carve on dry surface and spent a few bucks on building prototypes. This brief video taken on the day my gear was made shows how it works (I took it easy with the speed to get a good feel of the gear)



The front and rear wheels turn in sync on edging. The turning radius can be as short as 1.5m (6feet). I am sourcing larger wheels and will try them on grass and dirt tracks. I'll also add brakes to the rear wheel assemblies that engage in sharp turns in order to induce skidding and add safey on steeper slopes.

I have been talking to skiers in different forums and trying to get their feedback (and hopefuly words of encouragement) which would help me decide whether I should continue my efforts. In particular I'd appreciate if you could indicate if you think that my device could be suitable for learning, training, preparing for the snow or just enjoying in summer.

[jbotti]

Your invention is very similar to the Harb Carvers. You can view these on Youtube and at the HSS website www.harbskisystems. com

Having been on the Harb Carvers I can tell you that yes, things of this nature can be very valuable tools to work on skiing technique in the off season. Keep us posted on your progress.

[nosnowski]

Your invention is very similar to the Harb Carvers. You can view these on Youtube and at the HSS website www.harbskisystems. com

Having been on the Harb Carvers I can tell you that yes, things of this nature can be very valuable tools to work on skiing technique in the off season. Keep us posted on your progress.

I know know Harb carvers. I suppose the only similarity is the purpose of simulating carving. From the design point of view my device is completely different. First of all the wheels in my ski simulator turn sideways as you edge and those in Harb carvers are fixed. Not only this but my wheels are synchronised and turn sideways in the opposite direction i.e. when the front ones turn left the rear one turn right by about the same angle.

Also, the length of my skiing device is about 1m (3.5feet) and there's not risk of falling forward or backward when you hit a bump and go a bit off balance. My wheels are also larger, currently 5" but I'm sourcing even larger 6" ones which should work better on a rougher than tarmac surface. Appreciate your comments, thanks.

[jim-ratliff]

Interesting concept. It's hard to tell from the video, but it looks more like you are twisting the ??catchy device name??.  That matches some peoples way of skiing. Is that, how they feel when you are on them? 
Do they also turn just from tipping like a ski also would?
 I like the concept of linking the front and rear wheels to turn together.


However, for me, summer is bike time.

[nosnowski]

Interesting concept. It's hard to tell from the video, but it looks more like you are twisting the ??catchy device name??.  That matches some peoples way of skiing. Is that, how they feel when you are on them? 
Do they also turn just from tipping like a ski also would?

It probably looks like knee twisting when I was doing short turns. I didn't have the guts to go faster on the tarmac and probably to induce sharper turns on tipping at a low speed the old pivoting habit kicked in. However, when I was making longer turns I was definitely only tipping on the edge and that's how the design works i.e. when you tip them they turn. On a few runs I was going faster at the bottom of the carpark and when I really committed to the turn it had this sensation of carving. I do not consider myself a good skier and had a long break in skiing due to a knee injury. I didn't think that I could ski again but when I finally found the courage to try it turned out that the injury is not such a big hindrance. I now want to make up for the lost time which is a bit of a challenge given short snow seasons. I got some interest from really good and well known skiing instructors from continental Europe and Canada who would like to give it a shot. This will obviously be the ultimate test.

 

[nosnowski]

Interesting concept. It's hard to tell from the video, but it looks more like you are twisting the ??catchy device name??.  That matches some peoples way of skiing. Is that, how they feel when you are on them? 
Do they also turn just from tipping like a ski also would?
 I like the concept of linking the front and rear wheels to turn together.

I have made a few changes including installing larger wheels with pneumatic tyres. With a little bit more speed it looks better now and feels more and more like skiing

[nosnowski]

It was not raining last weekend so I went out to race with cars