wrote:
In article ,
wrote:

I doubt that a couple of meters will be workable. It will be very
long and bulky. Remember, this is ski boots with only a binding pin or
two for connection. You're talking nearly three times longer than the
existing classical rollerskis, two and a half for the longest (Marwe
combi with wire wheel extension). Even the old ones back in the 1980s
were not more than about half that, as I recall from photos. You're not
going to be skiing but walking, if you're lucky. Think this needs
serious rethinking.

On the other hand, it is no longer than my cross-country skis
(shorter, in fact), which have the original Nordic Norm bindings,
and no bulkier than the even earlier ones (which used Telemark
bindings, admittedly). And I really do mean that I really, but
REALLY, need that length and those properties. There is just
no chance of me handling things as short as even a metre.

Hello Nick, fancy seeing you here! :-)

With my ~53 years (I'm 56) of xc skiing behind me, I have to agree
completely with Gene:

You do not understand what you are asking for!

The fact is that a 205 cm xc ski has an effective length (for stability
purposes) which is just a fraction of that: It is designed to bend in
order to absorb bumps and to distribute your weight over a large area in
various (soft/hard) snow conditions, but it is really only the central
meter or so which provides you with stability.

Besides, a roller ski is end-weighted (due to the wheels) while a xc ski
is strongly center-weighted, so the roller ski needs to be much shorter
in order to be steerable at all.

Terje

--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"