Trying to revive grass skiing
 

Hi everyone,
I live in Australia where as you may know we have rather short snow seasons lasting at best three months and pretty poor quality snow. For the past few years I have been thinking how we could enjoy something that at least remotely resembles skiing and finally came up with a relatively simple design of skiing device that can carve on dry surface. I had earlier tried rolling tread based ski but it's quite demanding in terms of turning and hard with speed control. I guess in my younger years it would have been fun but I am a bit less crazy these days.

I spent quite a bit on patent applications and building prototypes but I am not sure if I should risk more funding to make a few more pairs (short series manufacturing is quite expensive). This brief video shows how it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eiSip6J03Q

I would appreciate your feedback which would help me to make my mind whether I should try taking it further or just stop here and just enjoy riding my prototype in preparation for our ski season.

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

On Friday, April 27, 2012 7:10:40 AM UTC-6, nosnowski wrote:
Hi everyone,
I live in Australia where as you may know we have rather short snow
seasons lasting at best three months and pretty poor quality snow. For
the past few years I have been thinking how we could enjoy something
that at least remotely resembles skiing and finally came up with a
relatively simple design of skiing device that can carve on dry surface.
I had earlier tried rolling tread based ski but it's quite demanding in
terms of turning and hard with speed control. I guess in my younger
years it would have been fun but I am a bit less crazy these days.

I spent quite a bit on patent applications and building prototypes but I
am not sure if I should risk more funding to make a few more pairs
(short series manufacturing is quite expensive). This brief video shows
how it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eiSip6J03Q

I would appreciate your feedback which would help me to make my mind
whether I should try taking it further or just stop here and just enjoy
riding my prototype in preparation for our ski season.




--
nosnowski

I had friends that developed the grass skiing stuff in the 70's/80's (?). It was something they messed around with but didn't get rich off of. They were basically inline skates before they were called inline skates. Now my buddy that developed those Easy Up shades? He made some cash!

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

On Friday, April 27, 2012 1:49:26 PM UTC-7, pigo wrote:


I had friends that developed the grass skiing stuff in the 70's/80's (?). It was something they messed around with but didn't get rich off of. They were basically inline skates before they were called inline skates. Now my buddy that developed those Easy Up shades? He made some cash!

How about your buddy that designed the Fast Change Adult Diapers? He's made a fortune just off you.
Still waiting for the contact info of the SPD "lieutenant" you claimed was going to put me in prison. DIAPER UP!!!!

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

On 4/27/12 6:10 AM, nosnowski wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eiSip6J03Q

I would appreciate your feedback

Looks like they work - make a few more by hand, demonstrate them at ski
stations in the car park and see if anyone buys the demo boards; then
decide if there is a market. Same thing on grass anywhere there's a
crowd of youth looking for the next thing.

Given all the varieties of pavement/grass skis that turn up on youtube
just when viewing your video, it looks like you've got lots of competition.

Getting rich was not really my motivation when I started thinking about the problem of safe carving-like dry surface ski. As I mentioned earlier having short ski seasons is quite a pain especially after moving to Australia from Europe where I spent best part of my life and could ski from December to April. Anyway, I realise that this is not the kind of business that you can make millions on but I'd be happy if I could make in it similar money that I am getting from my IT job. After spending 20 years in the IT industry I'm definitely more passionate about skiing than my profession.

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:55:06 -0700 (PDT), twobuddha
wrote this crap:

Still waiting for the contact info of the SPD "lieutenant"
you claimed was going to put me in prison.

I'm still waiting for the contact info for your CO, weasel dumbass.

Vote for Romney. Repeal the nightmares.

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

nosnowski wrote:
'pigo[_2_ Wrote:
;168754']
I had friends that developed the grass skiing stuff in the 70's/80's
(?). It was something they messed around with but didn't get rich off
of. They were basically inline skates before they were called inline
skates. Now my buddy that developed those Easy Up shades? He made some
cash!

Getting rich was not really my motivation when I started thinking about
the problem of safe carving-like dry surface ski. As I mentioned earlier
having short ski seasons is quite a pain especially after moving to
Australia from Europe where I spent best part of my life and could ski
from December to April. Anyway, I realise that this is not the kind of
business that you can make millions on but I'd be happy if I could make
in it similar money that I am getting from my IT job. After spending 20
years in the IT industry I'm definitely more passionate about skiing
than my profession.




Tires or wheels do not simulate edges very easily. Speed + slope +
uneven surface = unsafe conditions
I see stopping as an issue, I think new england slopes and think sharp
rocks.
The other day we were discussing going off track on to the grass and it
feels like you are given a burst of acceleration but it is a case of no
friction being generation by the grass and it mentally appears that your
are going faster where you have just lost all your tire grip.

Being rich has its drawbacks, well IT salary is going down so you might
equal what you make from grass skis.

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

On Saturday, April 28, 2012 4:01:40 AM UTC-6, nosnowski wrote:

Getting rich was not really my motivation when I started thinking about
the problem of safe carving-like dry surface ski. As I mentioned earlier
having short ski seasons is quite a pain especially after moving to
Australia from Europe where I spent best part of my life and could ski
from December to April. Anyway, I realise that this is not the kind of
business that you can make millions on but I'd be happy if I could make
in it similar money that I am getting from my IT job. After spending 20
years in the IT industry I'm definitely more passionate about skiing
than my profession.


Ok. Maybe I should have said "make a living off of"?

December to April? What? Did you live in a desert? :-)

Do you have sand dunes? Some sliding can be done on those. Grass doesn't recover as quickly as snow. I see the same public facility destruction of property that you get when skateboarders brake **** that they don't own were there to be a large number of "grass skiers". And commercially I don't think you could support enough grass to be economic.

Doesn't hurt to think outside the box though. Just my thoughts.

Trying to revive grass skiing
 

On Saturday, April 28, 2012 4:23:13 AM UTC-7, (unknown) wrote:
On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:55:06 -0700 (PDT), twobuddha
wrote this crap:

Still waiting for the contact info of the SPD "lieutenant"
you claimed was going to put me in prison.

I'm still waiting for the contact info for your CO, weasel dumbass.

Stop lying. Never had a CO.
I'm still waiting for a veriable ID, Huggies. You're bragging about being a coward again.