Family and kids sleds

[joosttx]

Alright NE vsaloners. The family is going sledding and I am incharge of getting the sleds. Any rec's of kids and family sleds

[caleb]

Dash Sled, Long | Free Shipping at L.L.Bean

If that looks like a bad idea (and don't get me wrong, it sort of is), the light plastic ones they have at Target for $9.95 work fine and reduce the likelihood of a hospital visit.

[robin3mj]

If you can justify the space needed and the cost, get one toboggan for the family and a few of the cheap plastic sleds. Save the real spending for skis and boots.

[pdmtong]

If you think the family will really be into it then it will make sense to purchase (and store) some sleds or tubes

I took my daughter a few times to either kingvale or soda springs (ten years ago, I forgot which) and paid the "lift" fees and rented the tubes so we could tow up and slide down again and again and again. I get that this is not quite the idyllic side of the road sled build a snowman sled its free but for the cost of the sleds...but I dont want to store those things since the usage window is small (kids age out and want to snowboard or ski etc.) and who knows what the weather will be. if you bought those five years ago they would have been sitting what a waste of money. the current rain and snow like this seems like the first time in a decade...

BTW...that house in san rafael that got split in two by the mudslide last week was the house net door to the one my sister-in-law owned ten years ago. her old house is red tagged now.

[andrew flowers]

when i was a wee one

1inch bmx stem shoved in the 'steerer tube' of a gt snowracer with the wheel pulled off. Cut apart the springs on the fork and the brake so the thing will barspin

put a bmx bar on, then heat the skis with steam to bend the backs up so they dont dig in riding backwards

off you go now

[nrs5000]

Simple plastic sleds work well on sierra cement. A runner sled wants hard ice, it will be useless.

Unless you want to pony up for a toboggan.

[j44ke]

Maybe one of these? Looks like fun.

[SlowPokePete]

I like toboggans.

And not much can beat the tire tube off a large truck or construction vehicle.

Some friends of mine built this thing up a few years back ...





SPP

[EDS]

Depends on snow conditions, but a combo of a simple plastic sled, inflatable tube and a disk (metal or plastic) could make for good fun.

[Bewheels]

Depends on snow conditions, but a combo of a simple plastic sled, inflatable tube and a disk (metal or plastic) could make for good fun.

^^^
This

As mentioned, runner sleds tear it up but require very hard packed conditions. The various sleds with flat bottoms allow you to slide on nearly any condition. Of course you will have very little control...but that is part of the fun.

Somethign like this will keep everyone entertained for a long time.
OD-BF154_SLEDS_P_20150121132117.jpg

[lumpy]

What you want is some of these:

Amazon.com: ERA GROUP 96 6x2x6 Pro Exped Sled: Home Improvement

The Expedition sled.

It's a bigger, heavier duty plastic sled - which means it's stiff enough to track well and you can actually make it turn. Plus a full five feet long so you can put a bunch of kids in it. Hear me now, believe me later.

[Bewheels]

ohhh - and we had one of these when my kid was little.

Snow Tubes | Outdoor Gear at L.L.Bean

Was ridiculously fun...

But you only get to go sledding after all the shoveling is done. Make sure you enforce that one :)

[Tom]

Runner sleds on frozen snowmobile trails are a whole lot of fun. Except when you go rapidly airborne because the sled hit a rut at speed and headed off laterally so you do a face plant on sandpaper ice. Which is actually kind of fun because your face is numb and when you walk in the house with blood all over your front your mom sort of freaks out.

When I was a kid I guess we had some big snow years. Two of my older brothers built a toboggan run all the way down the field behind the house - banked corners that we hauled buckets of water to and froze to solid ice and everything. It was the end of a toboggan when one of them almost made the big hook corner at the bottom but not quite and went off over the top into the hedgerow.

Which reminds me to make a PSA. If you ever get the urge to try the luge up in Lake Placid be aware that if you don't know what you're doing you will get mauled banging off one side of the run and then the other. If you understeer, wham. If you oversteer, wham. If you wham hard enough, you get two or three reaction whams. It's great. Then of course I thought after that the bobsled can't be that bad. It looks so smooth when you see it on TV. It's not. You do 90 to 180 degree rotations in about .001 second as you go into the corners. Walking up I watched a sled go by trundling along at the beginning. It looked slow. I thought this is going to be almost disappointing. Then I got in and the trees are just zooming by... and I realized that was the beginning where it looked slow... I knew at that moment if I was going to be anything, disappointed wasn't it.

[lumpy]

Good stuff about the luge and bobsled. I've always wanted to try that.

Our high school had a big old eight-foot wooden toboggan in the equipment room. One winter we had a rain and freeze that left an impenetrable crust on the snow, and three of my friends from the ski team and I took the sled on bigger and bigger runs, eventually winding up on the old Williams College slalom hill, which was about six hundred vertical feet high. Once we got going good and hot we discovered there was a slight double fall line and we were being drawn inexorably toward the woods on the right like we were in a tractor beam. We all took a beating when we got off the toboggan but there was no choice, and that was the end of the toboggan, which broke in a couple of places. Good times.

[davids]

If you've got a good base of heavy snow, the Flexible Flyer remains my favorite. It's fun as hell to be flying down a hillside inches above the ground and, if you get the real deal, you can actually steer the thing.

For fluffier, drier snow a flat-bottomed disk or sheet will be great. Although you can't lie down, you'll often end up backwards, and you will have little directional control.

[caleb]

If you've got a good base of heavy snow, the Flexible Flyer remains my favorite. It's fun as hell to be flying down a hillside inches above the ground and, if you get the real deal, you can actually steer the thing.

Important information for the Tuesday afternoon following a snowstorm:






Goals:

[Diablo de Acero]

If the sled area is packed down, you can go with plastic garbage bags for a super low cost solution.