| Nordic skiing – without snow! |
Date: Mar 5, 2010 
Once training Nordic skiing out of season was only possible on roads using
skis fitted with wheels that looked like giant roller skates. Now DryTrack AS has come up with a synthetic ski track based on
aluminium extrusions that allows year-round training with ordinary skis.No snow, no training! He was selected for the Italian seventy-kilometre skiing race, the Marcialonga, but had no snow on which to train and what’s more was not keen on training with skis fitted with wheels. It was then that Erlend Einarsen grew fed up with the lack of snow so he and his partner Heine Skarlund developed the answer – DryTrack, a ski track based on aluminium extrusions. The slide surface consists of a material developed by a British company for use on synthetic slalom slopes. It is similar to artificial turf but with a different structure. Friction is minimised by keeping the material damp. Large 468 mm wide extrusion. The synthetic slide is mounted on a track base of aluminium extrusions. The main extrusion is all of 468 mm wide, a solid extrusion that forms the two parallel ski tracks. Side extrusions are fitted with cavities that contain PVC pipes for wetting the tracks. Both the PVC pipes and side extrusions are perforated and are fitted with covers made from extrusions. Locking and cover extrusions are fitted to the middle of the main extrusion which together with the side extrusions lock the slide track to the track base. “From the beginning we envisaged the track base consisting of two separate extrusions with some sort of connector but using our largest press we found we could produce a complete solid extrusion as wide as 440 mm,” explains Thomas Almli, sales project manager at Hydro Aluminium Profiler. “One solid extrusion gives us optimal strength and stability.” With DryTrack it is possible to build a variety of facilities that allow training for Nordic skiing all year round. “DryTrack is available in many shapes and sizes, in fixed or mobile units,” says Erlend Einarsen. “The simplest is a 50-metre long diagonal track but it is also possible to build an arena similar to an athletic track where the long sides have 100-metre long diagonal tracks and the ends are 25 metres long with three-metre high slopes. In the middle there is space for a six-metre wide track for freestyle skiing.” The ski track system, for which patents are pending, has been developed by DryTrack in collaboration with external industrial designers. HAP has been actively involved in the development work in the designing of the extrusions and optimising their characteristics. The result is a flexible and durable system with an elegant appearance and carefully designed joints for ease of assembly and simple installation. DryTrack’s built-in stability also increases the number of applications as
it can be used for training the partially sighted and other handicapped people
to ski. DryTrack has been delivered to a number of test sites and marketing has
started in Norway. This unique system has attracted considerable attention and
its creators Heine and Erlend appeared in a Norwegian TV series that features
inventors. Soon it will allow Norway and the rest of the world to enjoy Nordic skiing
– without snow! |
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