Flexible Flyer

After 130 Years, This Huge, Heavy, 19th Century Sled Is Still King Of The Hill.

- Robert Klara

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the country is just now shaking itself off from the snowiest period of the year. That makes it peak season for sledding—an activity for which NOAA keeps no statistics, though it’s a good bet that most kids in snowy regions (and a goodly percent of their parents) are busy doing it. Chances are, too, that they’re using one of those $34 plastic sprinters or discs purchased from the likes of Walmart and Amazon.

And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. But among sledding’s true connoisseurs, trusting gravity and crystallized water vapor to send you careening down a hill is a practice that can be entrusted to but one kind of sled, the kind that speed demons have sworn by for 130 years: the Flexible Flyer.