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It’s rough sledding for a lot of companies right now — but one Vermont company is using technology to make the downhill ride a little smoother, and a lot faster.
Steve Luhr founded Cool Front Inc. in 2002 with the goal of transforming the snow-day pastime of sledding from a childish recreation into a full-fledged sport.
The Essex Junction-based company, doing business as Hammerhead Sleds, began selling its high-tech $350 sleds in 2004. So far, it’s sold 4,000, mostly in the New England region, and it’s looking for new investment of $700,000 to help expand the business nationwide.
The Hammerhead looks like an Olympic luge sled — but it’s designed to let riders steer through turns down a slope or a tube.
“We reinvented the sled, but we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel at the same time,” said Luhr. “We borrowed technology that existed in other industries and applied it to a sled.”
The steering mechanism is modeled after the rear suspension in a truck, using a leaf-spring system consisting of five stainless-steel plates that slide against each other, Luhr said. The seat, a canopy strung over the sled’s aluminum frame, uses a stretchy, load-bearing synthetic fabric to absorb shock. The rails have a concave shape like an ice skate.
Luhr, now 49, grew up in Vermont after moving there in 1967 from Illinois. He started Hammerhead Sleds after his former employer, BioTek Instruments Inc., was sold to Nevada-based Lionheart Technologies Inc. in 2002. On $300,000 in angel investment, the company developed the sled design and built the equipment needed to manufacture it.
Now, Luhr and CEO Holly Creeks, the company’s only two full-time employees, spend winters touring slopes, demonstrating the product to skiers, snowboarders and resort managers.
“We’re not trying to be on a black diamond trail. We’re just trying to be on green or blue slopes,” Luhr said, referring to designations for beginning and intermediate levels at ski areas.
What Luhr and Creeks do on their own time is another matter.
“We take them down the closed road through the Stowe Gap here in Vermont,” Luhr said. “We race down it like stock cars.”
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