Don’t mention street luge around the USLA offices, it seems to be kind of a sore point with them I think!

About 10 years ago a professional street luge rider came from LA to Lake Placid for a few weeks. He had sponsorship from a skateboard wheel company as I recall which picked up the tab for him to try ice luge. He was a good natural athlete and certainly didn’t lack for courage. He used to ride his street luge board on public roads in the hills of Los Angeles, sharing the road with cars! He once ran his board under a guardrail on Mulholland Drive and broke almost every bone below his waist. Anyway, the kid showed some promise on ice but he was in his late 20s, a bit too old to be trying for a spot on the national team. He got kind of a cold shoulder from a lot of people because of his “real job”, or at least he thought so, and he eventually went back to LA. As far as I know that was the only time anyone from street luge tried real luge.

I’ve watched street luge on TV a few times and haven’t been very impressed. The boards don’t appear to have any moving parts save for the trucks and consequently they turn about as easily as a supertanker. The worst ice luge slider in history (those of you who know anything about the 2002 Olympics know who I’m referring to) still had a better start than any street luge racer I’ve seen. I’ve looked at the rules for street luge and it doesn’t appear that one of our wheel sleds would be illegal, and of course a wheel sled steers pretty well. It seems to me that a half - way decent ice slider who showed up at the X Games with a wheel sled would have such an advantage that he’d be giving his victory interview on ESPN before any of the rest of the field crossed the finish line.