Outdoors

Snowless sled: Summer downhilling for brave souls

Snowless sled: Summer downhilling for brave souls
The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
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The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
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The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
Wheels replace snow rails
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Wheels replace snow rails
The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
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The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
The straps give you some control
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The straps give you some control
The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
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The Hanczar snowless sled lets you sled all year
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It's a reality that we come to realize as small children: certain wonderful indulgences of childhood like snow days, mud fights and sled jumps are entirely at the mercy of Mother Nature. You only get to enjoy them for a few months out of the year, and if the weather doesn't cooperate, you may miss a whole year or two. If only we'd had the Hanczar snowless sled when we were kids.

Now that we think about it, we probably can't really recommend anything even resembling this sled for children. It looks fast and terrifying, we don't really see any brakes or steering apparatus and only the low-profile seems to make it appear safer than downhilling in a grocery cart (but don't do that either).

Glaring safety issues aside, Polish designer Szymon Hanczar envisions the We Never Give Up! sled as the ultimate solution to sledding's greatest weakness. With its wheeled design, Hanczar's sled can tackle all kinds of terrain (mostly paved terrain, we'd guess) any time of year.

Hanczar was inspired not only by reminiscent memories of childhood snow days, but by the threat of global warming. The We Never Give Up! name is like a rally cry for battling against the circumstances of warming temperatures and retracting snow totals.

We love the idea of an all-season sled - especially in a winter that's been unseasonably dry and warm in many of the United States' snowiest areas - but this iteration looks a little scary. We'd like to see some large wheels, brakes and a steering wheel before getting aboard such an open, metal-and-wood vehicle.

It looks like the snowless sled is just a concept at present, but if you just can't let go of the idea of sledding in winter, products like the Icemeister Slicer should satisfy the urge (on grass at least).

Source: Hanczar via Design Milk

View gallery - 5 images
16 comments
16 comments
Dirk Scott
Oh dear, \"the snowless sled is just a concept at present\". Anybody growing up pre-computer games knows we used to wait impatiently for our mums to stop knocking out kids so that we could have the pram wheels and build one of these.
Guy Macher
Glorified grocery cart. This is a new low for Gizmag.
Roger Hurst
I\'ll reserve innuendo to those jokes I heard in my childhood, but...you\'ve got to be kidding.
Mike Barnett
Awesome... it looks just like an ambulance gurney, so you can save the EMTs a step when they scoop you up from underneath the dumpster or parked F-150 you\'ll crash into at the bottom of the hill. Provided, of course, you aren\'t run over by a bus first...
Ron Wagner
I had a Flexy Coaster when I was a kid. I traveled all around on it, especially fun. It had brakes, and you pedaled it like a scooter. You kneeled down on it head first. No helmets in those days. I loved it, but am sure it was discontinued because of accidents.
James Galan
We did have these as children! They were called gravity racers.
dsiple
Wheels are way to small to use on the same hills you\'d slide down in winter. Besides, the most fun way to sled is lying down and head first - this will sell a few to company employees and not much more.
Richie Suraci
Looks to dangerous......Doesn\'t look like it would work on grassy hills either
hawc
Great idea, no brakes, no steering, why not just drop your kids off the top of a building? I hope that this is some sort of a joke
Joe Sobotka
yup,, thats not going to work on grassy hills, go over rocks etc. totally useless. the only hill you can use this on is a paved road, which would be quite dangerous.
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