USA Luge Marketing Manager Yuliia Tyshevych and USA Luge Director of Marketing and Sponsorships Gordy Sheer smile at the end of the tour on Tuesday, Dec. 10. Credit Type: Staff Photo Credit: Chris Gaige

LAKE PLACID — Having grown up one town over from renowned luge athlete Erin Hamlin — a four-time Olympian who won a bronze medal at the 2014 Sochi Games — I’ve known about the sport of luge for quite some time now.

But on Tuesday, Dec. 10, I found out pretty quickly that I might not have what it takes to slide with the world’s best, unlike Hamlin.

Luge is a sport where athletes race down an icy track on a sled while lying face up and feet first. The sliders reach top speeds in excess of 87 mph on the sled that’s less than 2 feet wide. It’s a sport not for the faint of heart, and just the mere thought of doing so is enough to invoke butterflies in the stomach.

I decided to tour the USA Luge’s headquarters, just a couple of minutes from downtown Lake Placid, to learn more about such an enthralling sport. Even if you don’t have the desire to jump on a sled it makes for an excellent add-on to a visit to Lake Placid.

And for those seeking to add a bit of a thrill to their experience, the tours offer something extra. It culminates with a chance for visitors to slide down the ice — albeit at much, much more forgiving speeds maxing out somewhere around 10 mph on an abbreviated ice track — on one of the complex’s four indoor ramps.

Chris Gaige slides down the track just before crashing into the left wall during a tour of USA Luge's headquarters in Lake Placid on Tuesday, Dec. 10. Credit Type: Staff Photo Credit: Parker O'Brien

Outside of the weekly public tours, these ramps give some of the nation’s highest-caliber luge athletes the chance to practice their starts, including the push-off and settling into their sleds. They also give members of the general public — provided they have strapped on their provided helmet, donned their shoulder pads and signed the all-important safety waiver — the chance to try their hand on the ice.

The tour provides an overview of luge’s complexities and the immense amount of effort that goes into building and maintaining a program as renowned as USA Luge.

Starting off

The tour begins in the building’s lobby, with an initial overview of what luge is, and Lake Placid’s ongoing importance in the development of the United States’ luge athletes. USA Luge Marketing Director Gordy Sheer, a three-time Olympian who won the silver medal in men’s doubles luge at the 1998 Nagano Olympic games, led the tour that day.

Heading into the complex’s main area, the climate-controlled indoor sliding track area, there was a screening camp running, literally — as part of the kid’s training regimen. The program is a nationwide search for kids ages 10 to 13 to identify and develop future elite luge athletes, according to Sheer. It begins each summer with several hundred kids. Of that, it is narrowed down to about 100 by December, Sheer explained. From there, about 10 kids are chosen for to USA Luge’s D-team and have the chance to work their way up the pyramid. Sheer said the program has come a long way since his days as an athlete.

One of the ramps at USA Luge's headquarters is seen on Tuesday, Dec. 10. Visitors are invited to slide down the ramp as part of the complex's tour. Credit Type: Staff Photo Credit: Chris Gaige

“It’s been a development system for a long time,” he said. “My generation was probably the last where the pyramid was upside down.”

Sheer explained the purpose of the four ramps, each at a different angle that together can prepare the athletes for the variety of tracks they will face at a World Cup, World Championship or Olympic Games, and some of the other tools that athletes use to develop their starts and be as fast as possible.

“The start is the only place you can accelerate your sled,” he said. “Everywhere else on the run, you’re trying not to lose that. The sport comes down to thousandths of a second. Any advantage you can do at the start becomes a multiplier to your time.”

The ice is maintained year-round and is used by USA luge athletes of all levels. The building was renovated and significantly expanded in 2019 and 2020, finishing just before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sheer said the upgrades provided a significant enhancement to USA Luge’s training capabilities and preparedness.

USA Luge Director of Marketing and Sponsorships Gordy Sheer with a luge race suit and helmet at USA Luge's headquarters in Lake Placid on Tuesday, Dec. 10. Credit Type: Staff Photo Credit: Chris Gaige

“It gave us the ability to have a much longer run-in and it allows the athletes to actually lay down in the sled,” he said. “I know it sounds silly but laying down in the sled when it’s moving is not easy, and our athletes were making mistakes sometimes.”

What goes into a sled

USA Luge needed more space for the technological aspect of designing gear and equipment for the sport, Sheer said. A mere thousandth of a second can make the difference in finishing orders.

“That workspace is really critical,” he said. “Sled development and technological development is a huge thing for us now. You have to develop the athletes, physically, mentally and obviously equipment is a huge part of that process.”

Sheer explained that every sled was completely customized, not only to the athlete’s size but their driving style as well.

USA Luge Director of Marketing and Sponsorships Gordy Sheer describes how to steer a luge sled as part of a tour of USA Luge's headquarters in Lake Placid on Tuesday, Dec. 10. Credit Type: Staff Photo Credit: Chris Gaige

“Some athletes can handle or prefer a very tight sled that’s very hard to steer,” he said. “And others like a super loose sled.”

The tour visited some of the adjoining work rooms. Thankfully, for those on the tour, the workrooms are heated and provide a respite from the indoor track ice climate. Sheer said the primary workshop was built by the coaches after the building was turned back over to USA Luge when the renovations were complete.

“When I say ‘coach,’ it is a very broad term,” he said. “Yes, they stand there and they tell the athletes what they need to do, but they’re also craftsmen. They’re building sleds and they’re consulting with our engineers as to how to make the sleds faster.”

There’s not just one technician who oversees the sled design. Rather, it is a team collaboration throughout the process. The athletes, of course, also play a role. They learn the fundamentals of keeping their sled in good shape early on in their athletic careers, according to Sheer.

“As soon as they’re on a team, they have to learn how to maintain their sleds,” he said. “They have to take all of the nicks off of the running edge, they have to make sure there’s no rust on them, they have to make sure all of the nuts and bolts are tight and just a lot of other general maintenance stuff.”

USA Luge Director of Marketing and Sponsorships Gordy Sheer pushes Chris Gaige down the ramp as part of a tour of USA Luge's headquarters in Lake Placid on Tuesday, Dec. 10. Credit Type: Staff Photo Credit: Parker O'Brien

There’s a lot that goes into the construction and physics of a sled and how athletes use their bodies to steer it. Sheer explained that while the sleds’ metal parts are not made on-site, most of the assembly takes place within the building.

Sheer also discussed the maintenance process of a sled. He said that the national team athletes have two sleds: a racing sled and a development sled. He said they are always trying to make their development sled faster than their racing sled. Once that happens, Sheer explained that the development sled becomes the new racing sled, and the old racing sled is passed down to the junior national team, and eventually down to the C teams.

“You’ll tend to see (the sleds) lasting for about 15 years,” he said. “The only thing that stops them, usually, from getting passed around is complete obsolescence due to the evolution of the rulebook and technology.”

As he continued back to the ramps, Sheer explained some of the other equipment that athletes use, and each piece’s importance to an efficient run. They use very specialized fabric materials needed for the race suits to make them as aerodynamic as possible.

“Fabric is really weird stuff,” he said. “Where on the spool the fabric comes from, they say the middle of the spool is faster than the outside, all kinds of crazy (stuff) like that — things you would never think in a million years.”

The other work rooms on the opposite side of the building are focused on designing and building the softer, non-metal, sled components, Sheer explained.

“Every part that we have starts out as a CAD — computer-aided design,” he said. “We’re using tools like finite element analysis. We’re using CFD (computational fluid dynamics). All of those things apply to us, and our sponsors do a lot of the engineering for us as well.”

Sheer explained the various materials used, adding that silicone is preferred for a lot of the parts due to its reliability around the cold ice. He said fiberglass was another common material in the process.

“It’s a momentum sport,” he said. “We don’t really need to concern ourselves with weight. We want to be as heavy as possible.”

Inside USA Luge’s Additive Manufacturing Room, there is a brand new Stratasys F770 3D industrial-size printer — with a bed large enough to fit a person inside. The printer’s purchase was made possible in part by the Henry Uihlein II and Mildred A. Uihlein Foundation.

Our last stop before the ride was to check out some of the exercise equipment athletes use to train, including a specialized treadmill athletes use to push off against and build up their starts. A fleet of unicycles was also on hand to help athletes hone their balance, crucial to clean steering.

The ride

It’s been a long time since I had laid down on a sled, so what transpired wasn’t all that pretty.

As I walked up the stairs to the top of the ramp, Sheer provided a tutorial on how to steer a sled before we had the chance to go down the ramp.

His teaching unfortunately seemed to go over my head …

Moments into my run, I made an unfortunate and irreversible curve to the left, grinding against the wall — feeling little impact thanks to the shoulder pads — and slowing to a stop at the low point in the middle of the track, which generally resembles a “U” shape.

USA Luge Marketing Manager Yuliia Tyshevych was on hand to help fish me and my sled off of the track. It wasn’t my proudest moment.

Seconds later, my colleague — Lake Placid News Sports Editor Parker O’Brien, who had joined me for the tour — performed a crisp run, flying past me and effortlessly making it to the top of the other side of the seemingly unassailable “U” track.

“Only about 40% of people on the tour make it to the top of the other side,” Sheer said as we took off our helmets and shoulder pads afterward.

I guess I was in the majority of people who didn’t finish and an Olympic podium probably won’t be in my future. But just being able to slide down the ice was a lot of fun and it alone, I would argue, it’s a strong enough reason to add a tour of USA Luge’s complex to your to-do list while visiting Lake Placid.

While zipping — or careening, in my case — down the ice is a highlight for many, the tour from start to finish makes for an all-around phenomenal opportunity to get to know a bit more about one of the Olympic Games’ fastest sports.

What’s what: sliding sports overview

There are three Olympic sledding sports: luge, skeleton and bobsled. While there are key differences between the two, in general, luge and skeleton both use generally flat, rectangular sleds. The biggest difference is that in luge, athletes ride feet-first, lying on their back, and push off at the start. There are singles and doubles — where one person lies on top of another on the sled — disciplines to luge.

Skeleton, conversely begins with the athlete running at the start and jumping onto their sled head first lying on their belly. Skeleton only has singles, with one athlete on the sled.

Bobsled uses a partially enclosed sled where riders run at the start before getting into their sled and sitting inside as they slide down the track. There are two and four-person team disciplines in bobsledding.

Booking a tour

With the news breaking the other week that Lake Placid has been chosen as the backup site to the 2026 Milana-Cortina Olympic Winter Games for sliding sports — luge, bobsled and skeleton — if the track in Cortina d’Ampezzo is not built in time for the games, it is an especially exciting time for visitors to add a tour to their agenda.

Located at 57 Church St., tours are offered every Friday at 2 p.m. Visitors are asked to arrive by 1:50 p.m. Tours last between 60 and 80 minutes and cost $20 for people over 11 years old, $10 for kids between ages 6 and 10 and are free for those 5 and under. Proceeds from the tours benefit USA Luge and each ticket enters the person into a chance to win some USA Luge swag, as official merchandise raffles are periodically held.

Tours are capped at 25 participants, and online pre-registration is required. USA Luge also gives private tours to larger groups outside of the weekly time. Those can be arranged in advance by emailing info@usaluge.org or calling 518-523-2071. To find out more information about USA Luge and the weekly tours, as well as to register for the tour, visit usaluge.org/toursandrides.

USA Luge will be hosting a New Year’s Eve party from 6 to 8 p.m. at its 57 Church St. location on Tuesday. The special event includes building tours, complimentary food and beverages and a silent auction featuring exclusive merchandise and other official team gear. For more information and to sign up for that event specifically, visit tinyurl.com/mr2m5wdw.