Patent Grant
7052044
Beginning snow skiers often have difficulty learning to keep the tips of their skis together. In the best of situations a natural walking stance when superimposed onto a pair of skis would result in skis that are parallel. Unfortunately, it is far more likely that donning a pair of skis will naturally result in outward pointing ski tips, which will have the catastrophic consequence of causing the inexperienced skier to do the splits and fall.
Although teaching styles have varied over time and from one ski slope to another, most skiers will begin by mastering the snowplow, or wedge, before learning to keep their skis parallel. The snowplow maneuver has the tips of the skis pointing inward with the tails further apart than the tips. In this position the skier tends to place more weight on the inner edges of the skis resulting in a controlled descent of the ski slope. The angle of the skis is useful to control the skier's speed, even to a stop. A wider angle with the tails of the skis relatively much further apart than the tips will traverse the slope much more slowly than a narrower angle. The goal of the beginning skier is to graduate to skiing with skis parallel.
Several ski training devices have been patented for maintaining spacing between skis. Zemke's U.S. Design Pat. No. D366,083 shows a pair of loops separated by a spacer. One of these devices will slip over the tips of the skis and another over the tails, apparently to maintain parallelism between skis. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,171,667 Wightman describes a pair of spring-loaded connector rods that that allow restrained motion while generally holding the skis parallel to one another. Another patent by Wightman (U.S. Pat. No. 3,751,056) shows a special connector that may be used with his earlier patented device to allow the connector rods to be removed leaving pairs of receptacles that had been either glued or screwed to the upper surfaces of the skis.
The Ski Trainer of Charneck's U.S. Pat. No. 3,907,320 uses turnbuckle-like connecting rods that have their ends attached to clamps that grip the edges of the skis. With one such device near the tips of the skis and another near the tails, a pair of skis can be adjusted from a wedge to a parallel configuration by adjusting the length of the turnbuckles. Other patented devices add to a pair of skis complexities such as handlebars.
One of the most common and simplest devices that has been used for teaching beginning skiers to keep their ski tips together in order to form a wedge is known as the Edgy Wedgy. This is a plastic molded device not unlike a short piece of rubber hose with a screw clamp on each end. The clamps fasten to the tips of the skis with the body of the device lying between the skis so as to keep the tips of the skis closer together than the tails without allowing the skis to cross. When used to teach a child to ski, such a device is attached to the child's skis and the instructor, or parent, will ski backward in front of the child using a ski pole placed against the hose or ski tips to control the child's motion. The major drawback of this device is that the clamps tend to work loose due to vibration and cold weather. When tightened sufficiently to serve their purpose, the clips may mar or gouge the surfaces of the skis, though this is merely a cosmetic and not a functional issue.
The Tip Lock™ Ski Accessory by Apple Rise Sports includes adhesive strips that are applied to each ski to affix a loop portion of a hook and loop fastener. The mating hook portion of the fastener is sewn onto webbing that wraps around the tip of each ski. Two such straps, one for each ski, are connected by a buckle to keep the ski tips together in a wedge shape. The self-adhesive loop tape that attaches to the skis can be removed without damaging the skis, presumably when the skier graduates beyond the training phase.
Many of these devices involve an excessive number of components, rendering them expensive, cumbersome, unattractive and difficult to operate under winter conditions. Devices appropriate for use in a training situation, whether by the trainee or the trainer, need to be easily manipulated by a user wearing bulky mittens with a minimum of effort. They should be inexpensive, easy to attach to skis, have a minimum number of parts, and be easily carried when not in use. It will be showing that the present invention incorporates all of these characteristics while improving upon the security and stability of some of the better previous designs.
The disclosed invention couples a pair of skis near their upturned tips so as to hold the skis in a wedge configuration without allowing the tips to cross. This is useful for training inexperienced skiers to snowplow. Past devices have required that various connectors or receptacles be clamped, screwed or glued to the skis. The device of the present invention takes a different approach in that nothing must be added to the skis themselves to facilitate use of the invented coupler. It is the intent of the present invention to rely on ski manufacturers to provide a small aperture in the upturned tip of each ski for reception of the invented coupler. The required apertures may take the form of a round hole or a slot. During a transitional phase, before the manufacturing details are worked out, the apertures may be generated at a retail outlet or by an owner of the skis, by drilling or punching.
The invented coupler interconnects the skis using two sets of straps joined by a buckle. Each of the two sets of straps is attached to a ski. The buckle comprises a female portion and a disconnectable male portion so that the two skis may be easily separated without removal of the straps from their respective skis.
In each set of straps a central aperture-engaging strap engages the aperture of a ski. An outer strap in each set loops through the buckle and extends outward to wrap around the ski and capture the aperture engaging strap into a kind of sandwich. Hook and loop fasteners on all straps provide a locking mechanism to retain a ski and keep it from twisting loose. The described ski tip coupler provides a positive but reversible means of connecting two skis together in a manner that can be easily removed to return the skis to their original condition when the coupler is no longer needed.
The particular features and advantages of the invention as well as other objects will become apparent from the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:
In
The following Reference Numbers may be used in conjunction with one or more of the accompanying
The present invention is primarily a training device to aid in teaching an inexperienced person to ski. As such the described coupling device maintains a pair of snow skis in a wedge configuration with the tips closer to one another than the tails. This is accomplished by attaching the invented coupler near the tips of the two skis. Attachment of the coupler to the skis is accomplished without screws, clamps or glue. Use of the described coupler assumes that each ski has an aperture in its upturned tip for reception of a member of the coupler.
An overview of the disclosed coupler 100 is shown in
Since the two sets of straps 140 and 194 are mirrored images of one another, this description will refer primarily to the right-hand set of straps 140 beginning in
This stack of three layers, two 152 and 154 from the looped long strap 150 with the short strap 160 between, is permanently gathered and bound 170 so as to prevent its removal from the buckle 120. Since the straps in the preferred embodiment are made of a webbing material, it is convenient to gather and bind 170 the layers together by stitching with an appropriate weight of thread or cord. With this much of the assembly process accomplished for each of the two sets of straps 140 and 194, each of the two buckle portions 122 and 130 has been successfully attached to a set of straps leaving three open, unconnected, strap ends (152, 164 and 154). The short end 150 of the long strap 150 is fitted with an additional segment of loop portion 158 of a hook and loop fastener facing upward, or outward, away from the stack of open ends. At this point the described coupler 100 has been fully assembled and is ready for use.
To install the presently invented coupler onto a pair of skis, it is best to separate the left 190 and right portions 110 of the coupler 100 by disconnecting the male portion 122 of the buckle 120 from the female portion 130. In this manner the left 110 and right portions 190 of the coupler 100 can be installed independently to the left 440 and right skis 400 with minimal interference. Installation begins as depicted in
After both skis 400 and 440 have been installed to their corresponding coupler portions 110 and 190 as depicted in
Although the coupler 100 has been described primarily as a training device, other applications will be apparent once the coupler has been installed onto a pair of skis. One alternative use is as a convenient means of carrying the skis. Another use is to keep the skis from being separated from one another and lost when they are not being worn. The coupler 100 stores compactly as shown in
The present invention relies heavily on the strength, flexibility and ease of use of fasteners of the hook and loop type. Although the preferred embodiment has been described with a particular layout and sequence with regard to the locations of the hooked and looped portions of such fasteners, it will be recognized that an alternate embodiment may interchange the two genders with equivalent results. However, where such an exchange is made, all hooked surfaces must be completely replaced with loops and vice versa so as to maintain fastenability.
The type of buckle shown for purposes of illustration of the preferred embodiment is a plastic one that is commonly used for outdoor clothing, camping gear and related accessories. Those familiar with such articles will recognize that other two-part separable connectors may be substituted without altering the functionality of the described invention.
While the present invention has been described with respect to a preferred embodiment, there is no implication to restrict the present invention to preclude other implementations that will be apparent to those skilled in the related arts. It is easily recognized that the described invention may be implemented with a variety of components, therefore, it is not intended that the invention be limited to the disclosed embodiments or to the specifically described details insofar as variations can be made within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3264663 | Owens | Aug 1966 | A |
| 3567239 | Kitterman | Mar 1971 | A |
| 3703299 | Kutchma | Nov 1972 | A |
| 3992022 | Albers | Nov 1976 | A |
| 4275904 | Pedersen | Jun 1981 | A |
| 4828288 | Humbert | May 1989 | A |
| 4936603 | Reynaud | Jun 1990 | A |
| 5531480 | Foertsch | Jul 1996 | A |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 2609901 | Jul 1988 | FR |
