mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
My younger daughter wants a pogo stick for her birthday. I hadn’t even thought about pogo sticks since I was her age, and I never owned one. Pogo sticks have been around almost a hundred years, but of course, there have been improvements made on the basic model of my childhood. A pogo stick gives a mechanical boost to your hopping motion via kinetic energy stored in the spring. The best pogo sticks lifted you an extra foot. Building a better spring means the newer pogo sticks can jump higher than ever: five, six, even seven feet straight up! That’s extreme pogo.
There are several brands of “next generation” pogo sticks. The Vurtego has a patented air spring system instead of the traditional metal coil spring. The smallest size is recommended for people who weigh at least 75 pounds.
The BowGo uses a bowed spring instead of a coil. The same principle is used for prosthetic legs for amputee runners. The BowGo is not yet commercially available, but even if it were, it’s recommended for people who weigh 120 pounds or more.
The Flybar uses multiple rubber bands. Fred Grzybowski used a Flybar to set the world record for pogo stick height at seven and a half feet! You can see him do it in this video. But it’s more fun to watch Grzybowski demonstrate what someone with skill can do with a Flybar. I’m glad he sets an example by wearing a helmet.
Flybar’s smaller model is recommended for people from 80 to 180 pounds.
Powerboks are to pogo sticks as skates are to skateboards; i.e. springs attached to each foot. Kangoo Jumps are another type of jumping boot.
All these extreme pogo sticks look like a lot of fun, but they’re probably not appropriate for a 48 pound ten-year-old. I’m afraid something horrible like this will happen to her. Maybe I can interest her in a skateboard instead.
Comments (10)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
I shattered my wrist by falling off of a skateboard in only my second month of practice. I would suggest a unicycle instead. They’re much safer (99% of the time that you fall off a unicycle, you land on your feet), super fun, and very good exercise. There are a boatload of tricks and skills she could learn too if she wanted to. Check out unicycle.com for some good beginner unis.
I’ve been unicycling for five months now and I love to ride off-road (mountain unicycling) and distance (my max so far is only 15 miles). It’s rad.
posted by T on 5-12-2008 at 8:19 am
Well you can never be to careful at any materials you use, for me its in the safety gadgets that you use. For me let her use a bicycle instead with training wheels of course.
posted by skateboard on 5-12-2008 at 8:59 am
I was 10 years old and it was a late 1970’s summer day. After weeks of practice, I finally mastered the pogostick. It was baking HOT outside and our driveway had been newly-paved the week before…and I pogo-ed a few thousand little holes into it that day.
Parents: really NOT impressed.
Cool effect when it rained the next day though.
posted by AMR on 5-12-2008 at 9:31 am
Oh, she’s very skilled with both a bicycle and rollerblades. I just don’t think want her six feet in the air!
posted by Miss Cellania on 5-12-2008 at 9:34 am
AMR: Hahahaha!
posted by Miss Cellania on 5-12-2008 at 9:35 am
C’mon, get the pogo stick (not the high flyer, just a regular one). As the mom of two grown kids, we always encouraged them to try new things, especially something that gets them playing outside. We spend so much time worrying about them getting hurt that they’re soon afraid to do anything. How else do you learn your limits than by getting out there and trying? Yep, you get a bruise or scrape but the self confidence soars. I know that there are terrible things that can happen, but how sad to live a life of “what if I get hurt?” Just my two cents.
posted by Lynne on 5-12-2008 at 10:00 am
I wanted a pogo stick at that age too. It took me a weekend to master and I thought it was pretty awesome, but I did have some trouble getting anywhere and tended to just hop in circles, which isn’t so much fun.
posted by Eileen on 5-12-2008 at 3:44 pm
The shoe ones. Obviously what to spend your Tricky Dick Fun Bill on, if you’re otherwise a prudent accountant.
posted by Marco Mcclean on 5-12-2008 at 6:15 pm
My kids got a pogo stick. It came with a really fat bottom that you could eventually remove to a smaller stick. It was great for learning and they could actually move up and down without moving side to side at first.
Eventually my daughter got pretty good, but she never got more than one foot off the ground. And your feet come off fairly easy, so falling off is not the same as falling down.
posted by Karen on 5-12-2008 at 8:37 pm
I recently saw some of the small kids around here riding Big Wheels. I didn’t even know they made them. They were a major mode of transport in my kidhood. I know, nothing to do with pogo sticks. Get one for her.
posted by Sue on 5-12-2008 at 8:50 pm