Saucer sleds

[vakkotaur]

It seems a few folks have looked at the modes of transport list and wondered just what a saucer sled is.

It is exactly what it is named: a sled in a saucer form. Specifically it is a small dish, usually with a couple rope handles attached. In the last 20 years or so these have been plastic, but before that they were solid metal, typically steel. One sits cross-legged in the bowl of the dish and holds the thing to oneself (or oneself to the thing) with the rope handles, or else just holds on to the edges. This is done at the top of a snow-covered hill. When pushed (or it can be rocked if close enough to the edge of going) it coasts, no, accelerates, down the hill.

Unlike a regular sled, there is no front or back. Front is which way you face, back is the opposite. And since the thing has axial symmetry (from the snow's point of view) one can find oneself going downhill frontwards, backwards, sidewards, or any spinning combination. Steering? There is none. You check downrange first and hope. That, is, the passenger (certainly not pilot!) ought to do that. More likely a kid will just go... and have at least one memorable wreck. Remember the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon about the dangers of a toboggan? Riding a saucer sled is like that, only without the certainty of facing in the direction of travel.

Oh, and a good bump or sudden change can launch the whole works into the air, with a whole 'nother kind of spin. That is how the more spectacular (and painful) wrecks happen. Letting go merely means you and the sled can collide in the resulting jumble.