You read that right: sled legs, as in legs made of sleds. With mere days left on their Kickstarter and plenty of sweet pledges left on their campaign, I can think of the only reason you need to pledge now: Awesomeness.
(Source: cput.ac.za)
Imagine a world covered in snow, where anywhere you go you immediately do one of those running knee slide thingies? No matter your social rank, you would immediately rise to rockstar status in the schoolyard. Every kid would want to be you.
Sled legs take all the best parts about sledding, mashing them up with a strong dose of freedom. They may be the lowest tech wearable we’ve ever covered, but they are the top of that pile.
This is your life, it’s ending one missed Kickstarter opportunity at a time. Even if you’ve never sledded in your life, you may consider an excursion after reading this
Knee Sledding
(Source: victoriana.com)
In case you’ve never been sledding, there is no other way to go than on your knees. On your rear end is the fastest way to bruise your tailbone, maybe flip backward off a jump and crush your neck.
People think seated is the safe route, but there’s no way out of sitting when you get into trouble.
The knees first approach offers you more control, but also gives you escape routes, presuming you don’t get that sled underneath you as you extend into a vertical position. Then all bets are off.
This position does not work if you like to ride old-school sleds, the wooden things with the foot-steering. This is for plastic sleds only.
Dangers
(Source: vtskiandride.com)
There a couple of other downsides to sledding knees first. Your knees take a beating. Rocks buried in the snow or trick ramp hijinx can leave you crippled walking home from the sledding hill.
Not only that, you have to coordinate your sled entry to maximize velocity. That can go wrong if you overshoot your sled or go sledding on a sticky snow day. Plenty o’ knee-jockeys have eaten snow on an overshoot.
What would be perfect is a sled that materializes under your knees, then disappears on a whim. That way you wouldn’t have to cart it to the hill then back home again.
Freedom
(Source: kickstarter.com)
You may not even live near snow. It’s time to rethink your life, maybe move to Colorado or something.
The Sled Leg solution not only solves all the problems of traditional knee sledding, they offer you new freedoms. No longer must you carry your sled against the wind.
With Sled Legs you simply strap them onto your lower legs, then leave the house. You’ll laugh at all the other goofballs trying to get up the hill with their bulky old sled.
When you get to the top, there’s no waiting for a spot in line. You’ll sail through all the other sleds lining the top of the hill, jumping over their positions like an action hero.
When you hit the hard-packed snow, you’ll suffer no knee pain since Sled Legs are foam-padded for your comfort.
Genius
(Source: kickstarter.com)
The first thought you’ll think is, why didn’t I think of this?
Because your Sled Legs operate apart from one another, Sled Legs offer you more freedom to carve.
In a traditional sled, you have to steer by dragging your hands on the ground. That slows you down, but with two mini-sleds you just redirect your knees.
When and if you get into trouble, maybe find yourself aimed at a tree, you just extend your legs to run out of your slide. As one friend of mine pointed out, they even double as sweet shin guards if a battle breaks out.
(Source: kickstarter.com)
If you act now, you could have your own ‘Legs of the sled by January of 2017. It’s not quite in time for the holidays if you were planning to make these a gift.
Instead, you could drop a printout of your pledge into a card, then give to your favorite sledder. Otherwise, you gotta get in on the early bird pledge, which promises to ship for the holidays.
Sled Legs are gonna set you back at least $50 as of this writing. It’s a nominal price to pay for your freedom to be awesome.
Find out more about these little sleds of freedom by going to the Sled Legs site. Meanwhile get stoked watching this video.