Sigulda Bobsled

Columbia

I'm most likely heading to Latvia for a little bit in January or February. I would like to live out a childhood dream and maybe have a few boblsed runs on the track in Sigulda. I know they open up to the public, but they have no website I can find so I have no info on it at all.

Has anyone here done this, particularly in Sigulda? Some brief outline of what happened (instructions, etc.) on the day would be useful. Was it possible to go for more than one run? Was there an experienced driver in each sled, or was it entirely manned by first-timers!?

Also, is there any problem with one person turning up alone (as in, is there a rule that you have to come in a group of 4, to fill a sled)? This is something my GF would definitely not be up for :rolleyes:

robinph

I did this a few years ago at Sigulda on a mates stag do. I'm not sure where they got the details from for booking it or anything though, I'll do a bit of investigation and see if I can find out for you though.

What they do is push you down the track in basically an open foam box that has some drain pipes on the bottom as runners, no driver required. You then hold on for dear life as you go down and they then drive you back up to the top of the track again and send you down a few more times and they got about 5 us us in at a time going down. Don't let the description of it being a foam box put you off though, it is still plenty fast enough and as close as most people will really want to get to "real" bobsledding. I know that becasue they do also have a three man bob there as well which you can pay extra for a ride in, one of them drives it but one of you can get to operate the brakes at the end.

The difference in speed and g-forces between the foam thing and the real one is painful though, and they still only give you a little push at the start, with you already sat down in it obviously.

I have some video up on youtube of us going down in the foam thing I'll try and locate for you, but I've probably put it up somewhere here before now.

Columbia

Hi, thanks for the info, much appreciated! I might have seen your video up on Youtube, I watched all the ones I could find earlier today.

I'm glad to hear that you get several turns on the ice. I've heard the padded sled does about 80 kph, with the real bob doing 120

I can't imagine I'd opt out of the 'real' thing, if the option was available to me, but I guess it'll depend on how I handle the g-forces on the slower runs

robinph

Those speeds sound about right from what I remember.

This is the front facing view of us going down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BS6pFGcHCU

I just found another video and uploaded it with the camera facing backwards in the "bob" which maybe give a slightly better view of what they put us in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyQTKFMpcus

The I think they had 4 our five of us going down each time, but I got the impression they were happier the more of you were in it each time, more to do with it then staying on the track than just to get people down more quickly.