Skibob
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A skibob is a piece of sports equipment that is used to ski down the slopes while sitting and wearing skis on. The device is also known as a snow bike . In Great Britain it is known as skibike and the sport is also called skibobbing .
Prehistory of the single-track sled
In the 19th century, inventors in America and Europe tried again and again to develop snow vehicles that were the preliminary stages of today's skibob. In 1892 the American John C. Stevens from Hartford applied for a US patent for a “single-track steered sled ”. A normal bicycle served as a model, the front wheel of which he replaced with a sled runner and the rear wheel of which ran between two runners. This device never got out of the development stage, because swinging and sliding was not possible. Also in 1892 there were attempts with skis instead of the wheels of the bicycle, which did not prove itself either.
In 1900 the Austrian Toni Lenhardt invented the monoglider, a forerunner of the skibob. He was so successful that from 1910 mono-glider competitions were held in Bruck an der Mur.
In 1911 the Velogemel was invented in Grindelwald (Switzerland) ; With runners instead of skis and without a suspension system, you could only use steep snow lanes or gullies with a long run.
History of seat skis, skibob and snow bikes
In 1949 Engelbert Brenter received the Austrian design protection on his seat skis ; the patent application was not made until October 2, 1952. March 10, 1949 is therefore considered to be the hour of birth of modern ski bobsleigh.
Engelbert Brenter was a ski pioneer as a master wagoner, and his seat ski is based on the fundamentals of skiing and not, as before, on a modification of a bicycle or sled. This was the breakthrough to sports equipment - swinging and gliding was possible for the first time with his invention. The combination of front and rear skis in one line, as with the Gfäller-Ei (see below), as well as the suspension system and foot skis, made the skibob a piece of sports equipment suitable for slopes. Unfortunately, the two independent developers of the skibob (Brenter and Gfäller) only met in 1958 - and from then on they were able to continue working together on the development of the skibob. The specifics of the Brenter skibob, namely two foot skis to stabilize the ride, quickly prevailed over the Gfäller egg , which was still equipped with footrests like a motorcycle. Above all, the suspension was further developed by Brenter, so that after the production of the skibob by the two Gfellers, the modern skibob was created, which was then also produced in various ways by other companies in Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
On October 25, 1951, the son of the master wagner Georg Gfäller sen. from Kiefersfelden , the German Georg Gfäller jun. , with the help of Ernst Reiss-Schmidt , patented his skibob , a steerable sled , which is considered the original of the device later called Gfäller-Ei . (To improve shock absorption, this skibob had an egg-shaped frame). 1952 Georg Gfäller jun. the basic shape of the skibob around a jet drive, a propeller drive and wing and (curiously) also applied for a patent. He later had his patents revoked in order to make ski bobsleigh as a popular sport possible and to win over other manufacturers, in addition to the leading Brenters, for production.
Associations
- In 1955 the ski bob club Tirol was founded by Walter Gasser in Gries am Brenner ; In 1958 the Skibob section of the Hallein Ski Club followed , in 1959 the Skibob section of Naturfreunde Hofgastein and soon many other regional Skibob clubs were established.
- The Austrian Skibob Association was founded in 1961.
- On January 14, 1961 in Innsbruck , the International Association of Skibobfahrer ( Federation Internationale de Skibob jun (FISB)) with the President George Gfäller. founded and took its seat in Eugendorf . The Austrian Eduard Stierschneider from Hallein became vice-president. The basis for the foundation were numerous regional and national Skibob clubs and associations in many countries, with most of the organizations coming from the Alpine countries of Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland. In 1992 the association had 20 member countries with a total of around 30,000 athletes. For the year 2009 (June) nine state associations were given, eight of which come from Europe.
- In Germany, ski bobsleigh first came under the care of the Bavarian bobsleigh and sledging association in the BLSV (Bavarian State Sports Association), whose chairman Georg Gfäller jun. has been. It was not until 1965 that the Skibob department was spun off and became its own association ( Deutscher Skibob Verband ) in the BLSV, based in Munich , again chaired by Georg Gfäller junior. Gerhard Lenhart has headed the DSBV since the 21st century.
- In 1966 the Austrian Skibob Instructor Association was founded.
- In 1968 the FISB was accepted into the world organization AGFI / GAIF based in Lausanne / CH.
Races and championships
In January 1951, the world's first skibob race took place in Kiefersfelden . It was created by Rudolf Steiner and Georg Gfäller jun. organized. The 'Taifun' model, later known as the Gfäller egg , was used. More skibob races followed annually, for example in Oberaudorf , Hausham (1958), where the son of the Austrian manufacturer (at that time still with a seat ski, then also skibob user), Erich Brenter , took part in the race and immediately won because of the superior construction. The oldest participant was Georg Gfäller senior, the youngest his grandson, the then 9-year-old Georg R. Gfäller. Both had to acknowledge the superiority of the Brenter skibob because of the new foot skis for stabilization.
From 1963 to 1986 there were European championships; World championships have been held since 1967. Most of the winners come from Switzerland, Austria and, in recent years, from the Czech Republic. German athletes have also climbed the podium several times, especially between 1971 and 1989. Erich Brenter was the first European skibob downhill champion on a Brenter skibob made entirely of wood.
In the years 1981–1985 Walter Kroneisl won eight world championships, six European championships and was five times overall world cup winner . He also managed to defend his downhill world champion title three times (1987-1989).
Gerfried Seeber has held the long jump world record on a K-90 hill in Oberwiesenthal since 1992. In addition, he has been world record holder in years since the 2010/2011 season (his 30th World Cup season as an active racing driver). In 2016, in his 34th World Cup season, he won three World Cup races, the overall World Cup and the silver medal in giant slalom. This makes him the oldest World Cup medalist and the oldest World Cup and overall winner of all time.
Markus Moser from Austria holds the world championship title from 2010, which he was able to defend for the 31st time.
The Austrian athlete Petra Gamper from Club Tschach Wlezceck is the reigning world champion and was able to win this title for the 14th time.
Records
In 1964, Erich Brenter set the first world speed record of 166 km / h in Cervinia (Italy) and thus entered the Guinness Book of Records .
Hermann Koch and Harald Brenter , the grandson of the inventor Engelbert Brenter, set a world record for altitude of 32,736 meters in eleven hours in Obertauern / Austria on March 22nd, 2007 . They completed 62 runs of 528 meters each and reached a top speed of 107 km / h. A 7 kg light, modern series snow bike with full suspension and carving ski set the world record .
On April 23, 2010, Harald Brenter, Florian Schwarzenbacher and Wolfgang Jast went up the Großglockner for the first time with a 5 kg ultra-light custom-made tour from the Snowbike Manufactory Brenter . You conquered the highest mountain in Austria uphill and downhill. The adventure was accompanied by a film team and filmed in the form of an adventure documentary.
On March 28, 2011, the Snowbike Club Grächen with nine participants climbed Georges Gruber (mountain guide), Harald and Lisa Brenter (manufacturer), Urs Zenhäusern (director Valais Tourism), Daniel Luggen (spa director Zermatt), Dr. Berno Stoffel (CEO Grächen company), Björn Walter (2-time skibob world champion), Olivier Andenmatten (OK President fun & race week) and Sören Walter (photographer) with the touring snowbike up the Breithorn (4164 m above sea level) near Zermatt.
The Austrian Wolfgang Jast conquered the highest mountain in Europe on May 5, 2011 with a snowbike. With the specially developed Brenter Snowbike C6 with touring set, he managed the ascent and descent over the northern flank of Mont Blanc .
Hermann Koch and Harald Brenter, the grandson of the skibob inventor Engelbert Brenter, set a vertical distance record in Austria on March 12, 2013 with an altitude of 3086 meters in one hour.
Racing disciplines
The disciplines-organization takes place as in the alpine ski disciplines for slalom , parallel slalom , giant slalom , super-G , downhill and Alpine Combined . Women and men are at the start. There is also high-speed skiing , where Romuald Bonvin from Switzerland (who is also chairman of the Swiss Skibob Association) reached 201.580 km / h on a special slope in Les Arcs on April 17, 2003 .
Web links
- The official FISB website
- German Skibob Association
- Austrian Skibob Association
- Swiss Snow Bike Team
- Brenter original snow bike
Individual evidence
- ↑ Homepage of the International Ski Bobsleigh Federation FISB with an exact definition What is a snow bike (as of January 2011)
- ↑ Tyrolean Skibobverband: Chronicle
- ↑ Homepage of the ÖSBV with its own chronicle ( memento of the original from December 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ List of national skibob associations; As of June 2009 (PDF; 58 kB)
- ↑ Homepage of the German Skibob Association
- ↑ homepage ÖSBV with the history of the world champion; As of January 5th, 2011 ( Memento of the original of December 24th, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Snowbike illustration at Brenter
- ^ Homepage of the club in Grächen
- ↑ Wolfgang Gaube: Consistently sticking to goals (on the Montblanc inspection) in: Woche.at from May 12, 2011 (PDF; 516 kB) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 28, 2011
