You what?! Sledding edition

December 14, 2018 6:21 AM

A friend and I were talking about our favorite sledding positions. She said "double decker". I responded: do you mean one sitting behind the other, or one lying on top of the other? She thought I was joking, which caused me to wonder if this is widespread. Do you do this?

In my family we always did this. My parents would lie on top of each other. My sisters and I do this. Now I can't recall if my aunts did. My brother in law does but he has been influenced by us.

Personally I think it is very uncomfortable and I have no idea why we do it - I guess because it is so ridiculous.

Are y'all sledding double decker?

posted by Emmy Rae to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (24 answers total)

New Englander here.
I've definitely sledded with multiple people on the same sled. Many times.
But it's usually in a sitting-in-a-line or sitting-around-the-inside-of-a-tube formation.
I can't say that I recall ever sledding lying flat on top of each other.
posted by jozxyqk at 6:34 AM on December 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

New Englander here. Can't recall ever doing this, seeing it done, or hearing about it. Double-decker sledding is news to me.

Probably makes for some fun wipeouts though.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:34 AM on December 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think it was common for an adult to do this with a kid where I grew up. Like, if the kid was too young to control the sled on their own. It was more aerodynamic than you both sitting up.

But I can’t say I recall any adults doing it.
posted by greermahoney at 6:34 AM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure we tried it a few times as kids, though not to any sort of success. Haven't been sledding since then, though.
I'm curious as to what your friend meant by "double decker" if she didn't mean "on top of each other"?

FWIW, 2-man luge is a long-time traditional thing, so it's kind of odd your friend would have thought you were joking.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:35 AM on December 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

From the South here, the handful of times we got enough snow to sled, my folks and I did this. Dad on the bottom, Mom, then me. Oh and lots of little cedar trees whapping us in the face as we went down the hill.
posted by teleri025 at 6:41 AM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Two kids stacked on top of each other? Sure, but always with the understanding that the top kid was going to fall off in some dramatic fashion.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:44 AM on December 14, 2018 [18 favorites]

New Englander. I sledded as a kid and I sled with my son now.

If there is a position, I have sledded in it. I have gone two on a sled sitting, one on top of the other, one facing forward and one back, etc. I have crashed a sled in every position, I have gone forwards, backwards, sideways and upside-down. I could probably write the Kama-Sutra of sledding.

I also have my own spine doctor now, which is very likely due to the "kneel down on an inner tube while going over a jump and then land flat on my head and wow is that my spine compressing... cool!" position.

So I guess my point is, yeah, people sled in all sorts of ways.
posted by bondcliff at 6:47 AM on December 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

Lying on top of one another seems like a recipe for smashed heads or faces. Most of our sledding ends in dramatic crashes and I can't imagine this position would work well.
posted by beccaj at 6:47 AM on December 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I totally did this as a kid in OH, usually kid on top of adult but sometimes two kids or rarely two adults. It’s awesome because it allows you to go faster, and it also is psychologically faster due to face first and low to ground. I will totally do it with my kid when the opportunity arises.

But we only did it on flexi flyers and we learned and practiced sledding as a skill so crashes were very rare.

Also, of course double decker has to mean stacked vertically, by analogy to decks on a boat or a bus. Nobody calls a double-long bus a double decker.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:52 AM on December 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

My grandparents had an epic sledding hill. We frequently sledded two-to-a-sled lying on top of each other. One behind another was probably more common, though. We would also make "trains" of multiple sleds in a line, with the towing rope of one attached to the back of the next.
posted by gyusan at 7:01 AM on December 14, 2018

Midwesterner, moderate childhood sledder, never heard of or did sledding lying on top of others. If there was a shared sled, it was always one sitting in front of the other, maybe leaning into each other sort of like a log ride.
posted by Fig at 7:07 AM on December 14, 2018

Also, in doubles luge, the top person has a little platform they sit on (see here), and they're strapped in. They're in close proximity, but the bottom luger isn't supporting all of the weight of the top one, like you would be in a double-decker sledding situation.
posted by Fig at 7:09 AM on December 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I grew up near a MASSIVE sledding hill that spilled out into an (empty) cow pasture, so crashes were rare (but building jumps was not rare). Two kids stacked on on top of the other, or an adult controlling the sled with a child clinging on to their back like a a baby possum was totally a thing.
posted by anastasiav at 7:20 AM on December 14, 2018

Illinoisan. Yes, we did this. Little one perched atop big one, big one steers the sled. Kid + parent or younger sib + older sib. The added weight and aerodynamic position made you go REALLY fast.
posted by lieber hair at 7:27 AM on December 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Grew up in MD in the 70s/80s, and went sledding both ways, but double decker is smaller person laying on top of the bigger person. I recently converted old home movies and was watching with my husband when a scene like this came on. He thought we were crazy - or maybe that was because we were sledding directly into the huge tennis court metal fence at the bottom of the hill. So much fun!
posted by maxg94 at 8:42 AM on December 14, 2018

Minnesotan here, was a daily sledder in the winters of my childhood. I have never heard of sledding in the way you describe. We'd sit one behind the other (the front person/people between the legs of the back person/people) and we'd hold on to each other's sleds/tubes to make a big blob to go down the hill together, but never on top of each other.
posted by Elly Vortex at 8:44 AM on December 14, 2018

Two kids stacked on top of each other? Sure, but always with the understanding that the top kid was going to fall off in some dramatic fashion.

Yep, same, in New England. There was one "better" sled, and this way me and my sister could both sled on it. "Two kids sled, one kid finishes sledding"
posted by jessamyn at 11:11 AM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Michigander, holy shit no. You wanna bust your head open, kid??
posted by selfmedicating at 11:14 AM on December 14, 2018

> Lying on top of one another seems like a recipe for smashed heads or faces

Yup, exactly, that's why we did it! Not every time, but it's definitely in the repertoire of "stupid ways to go down the hill on a sled," like sitting backwards, or everyone trying to hold on to the sled in front of them.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:20 AM on December 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Torontan* here I've done this with my kids and they've done it with each other. I have no recollection of doing it with friends but I could easily imagine trying to make some kind of human pyramid on a sled.


*WTF is a Torontan? I don't know but that is what Jeff Speck decided to name the people of Toronto in Walkable City Rules
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:34 PM on December 14, 2018

Washingtonian here, and I'm sure I did both as a kid.
posted by purple_bird at 4:41 PM on December 14, 2018

I grew up on an Air Force base in Germany, and we went sledding all day, every day, all winter. We did this a lot, usually with my little brother on top of me. There were kids from all over the country living on the base, and we all did it.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:09 PM on December 14, 2018

Indiana here. We did this on a big, sort of triangle shaped, metal sled called the bat wing. We did triple decker (lighter kids laying on top of bigger kid) once with 2 kids sitting behind when we were in the 4-6 year old range. Hit a small ramp and most of us went flying off. I think 2 out of the 5 made it down hill but no injuries. Double decker was not uncommon and wasn't considered risky. It was just a challenge to see if you could make it all the way to the bottom of the hill.
posted by stray thoughts at 5:25 PM on December 14, 2018

Connecticut; we absolutely did this, but I recall that adults would frequently try to discourage it for safety reasons.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 1:45 PM on December 16, 2018