Start playing skeleton? Start performing skeleton? Start doing skeleton? I don’t know the proper phrasing. I understand it’s difficult to do luge, skeleton and bobsled because there are only tracks in a limited number of places. I’m interested in how you start, specifically skeleton and luge. I can see how you can practice the push off without the full track. Is the first time you go down the track on the 100mph death track? Do they have slow beginner tracks? Do they have equipment that allows you to practice at a slower speed? Let’s say a 12 year old sees the olympics today and is inspired, how does he start his career?
Luge is easier in some ways. There is a street version and a couple things I saw in a fast Google seems to indicate some people have jumped over. But for skeleton it looks almost like you have to move to Lake Placid or somewhere like that. In other words there is no real version of a rollercoaster “mountain coaster” that relates to skeleton.
http://blog.theclymb.com/passions/snow-sports-passions/want-try-skeleton-6-tips-beginners/
Now luge on the other hand --------
Not totally on point but I found the above fascinating. There is also a PDF out there for parents of kids interested.
If you look at the track, there are additional starting ramps that merge with the track on the way down. They’re blocked off, but you can spot them if you’re looking. I always figured those were for people just starting out, or junior events, or something like that.
There’s always the local water slide.
I suspect drinking heavily is involved in some fashion. My mental picture of the first skeleton rider includes the words, “Hey y’all! Watch this!!!”
Yeah, it’s pretty much a “Hold my beer!” sport. 
I’ve been wondering: If skeleton, luge, etc. are Olympic sports, why isn’t Going Down A Water Slide an Olympic sport?
Like with snowboarding and a lot of other things --------- just give it time. There may just be a future summer games that includes it if enough different people figure a way to turn it into some kind of competition. That really seems to be the only thing it lacks as far as I can tell.
There’s a luge track near me (the Muskegon Luge Track), and a dude I know went down it with his 12-year-old a couple years ago. He said the first run down was fine, and second time down he got some scrapes and burns. He tried talking me into it, but I just don’t think it sounds like something I should be doing at this point in my life. It’s like in bowling, if you have an off frame, you get a gutter or knock down only one pin. In golf, if you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing, you might shank a ball into the woods or miss a putt. In luge, you die. Or if you’re lucky, you end up with the skin tore off 2/3 of your backside.
It just seems like something I’ll watch every four years on the TV and go “Holy shit, those guys are CRAZY!” And then I’ll watch skeleton and go “Holy shit, those guys are batshit INSANE!!”
For the 2-man luge, I think you can start with an ad on Craigslist.
That makes sense.
This sounds like one of those weird viral Internet questions, like “How is babby formed?”
I will admit that when I read the thread title my first thought was, “Did Loach get hacked?”
I think that’s how luge started.
But 3 cases of beer later…
“Dude, I can beat that. I’ll go head first!”
And skeleton was born.
Now, how the hell did they name it?
I came in to say almost the exact same thing.
I believe that the skeleton was named after what tends to accumulate at the bottom of the run when people perform the activity.
:D:D I set em up, you knock em down.:D:cool:
Should I have said skeletoning?
Not for the vast majority of slides that make you go down on a pad. I think they push pads on people for two reasons: 1, they don’t have to maintain as smooth a bottom surface, and 2, everyone goes at relatively the same speed so they can get more throughput since they don’t have to worry about the very slow or very fast people.
But for those slides where you can still go down on your back, it does indeed feel similar to luge and those other winter sports.
The foot bone connected to the leg bone …