WO2003013669A1

WO2003013669A1 - Improved arrangement for fastening a footwear to a piece of sports equipment

Info

Publication number: WO2003013669A1
Application number: PCT/EP2002/007450
Authority: WO
Inventors: Giuliano Frati
Original assignee: F.B.C. Di Giuliano Frati & C. S.N.C.
Priority date: 2001-08-10
Filing date: 2002-07-05
Publication date: 2003-02-20
Also published as: ITPN20010031U1; CN1649649A; EP1414531A1

Abstract

The present invention refers to an improved arrangement for fastening a footwear to a piece of sports equipment, such as a cross-country ski, a roller ski, or 'skiroll', a roller skate or an ice skate. The arrangement comprises a base that is fastened to said piece of sports equipment in a stable manner; a substantially rigid support plate that is pivotally connected in correspondence of its front end portion to said base and is adapted to oscillate between a first position, in which it is in contact with said piece of sports equipment, and a second position, in which it is raised with respect to said piece of sports equipment; and elastically deformable means that are adapted to elastically oppose the oscillation of said plate between said first position and said second position. The peculiar feature of the present invention lies in the fact that said support plate is provided with means enabling said footwear to be quickly positioned and fastened to said plate, in which said means are adapted to removably cooperate with corresponding conjugate abutting members, or checks, provided on the sole of said footwear.

Description

IMPROVED ARRANGEMENT FOR FASTENING A FOOTWEAR TO

A PIECE OF SPORTS EQUIPMENT

DESCRIPTION

The present invention refers to an improved arrangement for fastening a footwear to a piece of sports equipment, such as a cross-country ski, a roller ski, or "skiroll", a roller skate or an ice skate.

Cross-country skis and roller skis, which are intended to slide over a blanket of snow and over the ground on two or more rollers, respectively, are generally known to be formed by an elongated board on top of which there is attached an arrangement for fastening the footwear; usually, such an arrangement comprises a binding or clamping member in correspondence of the toe portion, whereas the heel-piece is left loose so as to enable the footwear to impart the necessary thrust required by the ski through the oscillation of the same footwear with respect to the binding member at the tip. Such an oscillation of the footwear is obtained through the deformation of the sole, which is in fact made of a flexible material, such as for instance a thermoplastic material.

Roller skates or ice skates are on the contrary formed by a support frame for the rollers or the blade, on top of which the footwear is fastened. Owing to a skate being much shorter than a ski, and therefore much easier to handle, the footwear is fastened thereto both at its toe portion and its heel-piece, while the necessary thrust is imparted by raising the skate with respect to the ground jointly with the footwear attached thereto.

Solutions are also known, both in the ski and the skate sectors, in which the footwear is rigidly associated, in correspondence of its sole, to a support plate which is in turn pivotally connected to the piece of sports equipment in correspondence of the tip portion of the footwear. Thanks to the greater rigidity of the sole associated to said support plate, a more powerful thrust is obtained. Examples of such solutions are illustrated in the international patent application no. WO 96/37269, as well as the Italian patent applications nos. PN2000U000025, PN2000U000026 and PN2000U000042, all of them filed by this same Applicant.

A drawback that appears to be shared by the above cited prior-art solutions lies in the fact that, owing to the footwear being fastened to the piece of sports equipment in a stable manner, the user must wear different boots when moving to and from the place where the sports activity is actually being practiced. When he/she then reaches said place, he/she shall take off said boots and "wear" the piece of sports equipment via the footwear associated therewith, and such a procedure shall then be repeated in the reverse order upon conclusion of the sports activity.

Furthermore, the user is practically forced to put on a different footwear, as associated with each piece of sports equipment, each time that he/she wants to change such a piece of sports equipment. This may for instance occur when a same user makes typically use of several types of skis, each type with different characteristics according to the different requirements that may arise at any particular moment (e.g. length, configuration, waxing, and the like), or different skates provided with differing sets of rollers, e.g. four or five rollers, rollers provided with bearings with different sliding or gliding properties, rollers of a different diameter, etc. The user must therefore put different boots whenever he/she changes the piece of sports equipment, under a resulting feeling of poor comfortableness and scarce adaptability of the boots to his/her own feet, caused by the absence of a prolonged use of the same footwear for a specific sports activity that generally is the primary condition in view of determining a proper compliant shaping and adaptation of a boot to the morphologic peculiarities of the foot of the user.

An additional drawback that is found in solutions in which the boot remains fastened to the piece of sports equipment in a stable manner derives from the overall bulkiness of the piece of sports equipment itself, such that it turns generally out as being particularly awkward and uncomfortable to handle and transport.

It therefore is a main purpose of the present invention to do away with the above-cited drawbacks of prior-art solutions through the provision of an improved arrangement for fastening a footwear to a piece of sports equipment which, while ensuring an unaltered greater thrust power obtainable through the interposition of a support plate between the sole and the piece of sports equipment, enables a same footwear to be used to both walk during transfers to and from the actual site at which the sports activity is carried out, and to practice such a sports activity.

Within the above general purpose, another important purpose of the present invention is to enable the user to keep wearing the same footwear when changing from a piece of sports equipment to another one.

A further purpose yet of the present invention is to make it more convenient and comfortable for the piece of sports equipment itself to be handled and transported.

A last, although not least purpose of the present invention is to provide an arrangement that may be manufactured at reasonably low costs with the use of readily available, largely known tools, machinery and techniques.

According to the present invention, these, along with further ones that will be apparent in the following description, are reached in an improved arrangement for fastening a footwear to a piece of sports equipment comprising:

- a base that is fastened to said piece of sports equipment in a stable manner;

- a substantially rigid support plate that is pivotally connected in correspondence of its front end portion to said base, said plate being adapted to oscillate between a first position, in which it is in contact with said piece of sports equipment, and a second position, in which it is raised with respect to said piece of sports equipment;

- elastically deformable means that are adapted to elastically oppose the oscillation of said plate between said first position and said second position,

wherein said support plate is provided with means enabling said footwear to be quickly positioned and fastened to said plate, said means being further adapted to removably cooperate with corresponding conjugate abutting members, or checks, provided on the sole of said footwear.

Further features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the description of a particular, although not sole embodiment that is given below by way of non- limiting example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: - Figure 1 is a partially cross-sectional side view of the arrangement according to the present invention, as illustrated with the footwear unfastened and separated from the piece of sports equipment;

- Figure 2 is a side view of the arrangement with the footwear fastened to and in contact with the piece of sports equipment;

- Figure 3 is a same view as the previous one of the arrangement with the footwear fastened to, but in a raised position with respect to the piece of sports equipment.

With reference to the above-mentioned Figures, the reference numeral 1 is used there to generally indicate a piece of sports equipment that, in the illustrated embodiment, is constituted by a cross-country ski; in correspondence of the upper surface 2 of the ski 1 there is associated an improved arrangement according to the present invention, as generally indicated at 3, for fastening a footwear 4 to said ski 1.

The arrangement 3 comprises a base 5 connected in a stable manner, for instance by means of screws, to the ski 1; said base 5 is provided with a pair of front brackets 6 and a pair of rear brackets 7. In an advantageous manner, there may be provided a hull 8 located in front of the base 5 not only to aesthetical purposes, but also to provide a protective covering to the whole arrangement.

To the front pair of brackets 6 there is pivotally connected a support plate 9, which is made with such a conformation and /or such a material as to be able to confer the the same plate 9 an adequate structural rigidity in view of effectively transmitting to the piece of sports equipment the force exerted by the leg of the user during a pushing or thrusting phase as the related sports activity is being practiced; as anyone skilled in the art will be capable of readily realize, apart from being made of a suitable material, the plate 9 may be provided, for instance, with stiffening ribs on the lower portion facing the upper surface 2 of the ski 1 so as to ensure the required rigidity.

The pivotal connection of the support plate 9 to the front pair of brackets 6 is obtained, for instance, by means of a pivot 10 that is located transversally with respect to the longitudinal axis of the ski 1 and passes through the front pair of brackets 6 and the front end portion 11 of the plate 9.

Under resting conditions, the rear end portion 12 of the plate 9 is contained within the rear pair of brackets 7, which therefore constitute a seat for both accommodating and guiding the plate 9, and in contact with the upper surface 2 of the ski, possibly through the interposition of the base 5.

Accordingly, the above described arrangement enables the plate 9 to oscillate between a first position, in which the rear end portion 12 thereof is in contact with the upper surface 2 of the ski 1 , and a second position in which said rear end portion 12 is on the contrary raised with respect to the ski 1 and, therefore, the plate 9 forms a pre-determined angle with respect to the upper surface 2 of the ski 1 ; to elastically oppose such an oscillation of the plate there are provided elastically deformable means 13, which may for instance be constituted by a pair of springs that are interconnected between the front pair of brackets 6 and the plate 9, or even by the same covering hull 8 that is in this case suitably made of an elastically deformable material.

The peculiar feature of the present invention lies in the fact that the support plate 9 is provided with means adapted to allow for the footwear 4 to be most quickly positioned and fastened on to the plate 9. In the particular embodiment illustrated in Figures 1 to 3, these means comprise a first seat 14 and a second seat 15 provided in correspondence of the front end portion 11 and the rear end portion 12 of the support plate 9, respectively, and a temporary fastening member constituted, for instance, by a cam lever 16 that has its fulcrum in correspondence of the rear end . portion 12 of the plate 9 along an vertical axis 17.

The above-described quick positioning and fastening means are adapted to removably cooperate with conjugate abutting or check elements provided on the sole 18 of the footwear 4; such elements are constituted by a first and a second protrusion 19, 20 projecting downwards from the sole 18 in correspondence of the toe portion 21 and the heel portion 22, respectively, and so shaped as to be able to fit by the coupling of shapes into said first and said second seat 14 and 15, respectively.

Preferably, the first protrusion 19 is arranged in a position which is set back from the toe, approximately in the zone of the metatarsus of the foot: it has in fact been found experimentally that fastening the boot exactly in such a zone proves effective in both increasing the thrusting or shoving power and enhancing the control in guiding the piece of sports equipment.

The operation of the arrangement according to the present invention is as follows: upon putting on the footwear 4 and reaching the place where he/she is going to practice his/her sports activity, the user shall insert the first protrusion 19 into the first seat 14 by inclining the toe 21 of the footwear 4 downwards, in such a manner as to position the same footwear 4 on the support plate 9 for being then fastened thereto. He/she shall then lower the heel 22 and position the second protrusion 20 on the support plate 9 in the space comprised between the second seat 12 and the cam lever 16. Upon having so correctly positioned the footwear 4 on to the support plate, the user shall actuate the cam lever 16 so as to cause it to rotate about the vertical axis 17 until the cam 16a of said lever is brought into contact with the rear wall 20a of the second protrusion 20; doing this will cause the footwear 4 to be pushed towards the front portion of the piece of sports equipment 1, thereby causing the first and the second protrusion 19 and 20 to engage the first and the second seat 14 and 15, respectively, and be locked therein. In other words, this means that the footwear 4 is now fastened to the piece of sports equipment 1 , so as this is illustrated in Figure 2. When such an operation is so completed, the footwear 4 will be capable of oscillating jointly with the support plate 9, so as this is illustrated in Figure 3, thereby transmitting the thrust power to the piece of sports equipment in an optimum manner thanks to the rigidity of the plate 9 itself.

Fully apparent from the above description is therefore the ability of the footwear positioning and fastening arrangement according to the present invention to effectively reach the afore cited aims and advantages: in fact, the assembly formed by the footwear and the piece of sports equipment is capable of maintaining and ensuring a high thrust power thanks to the interposition of the rigid support plate, while at the same time enabling the user to conveniently fasten and release the footwear to and from the piece of sports equipment exactly according to his/her particular needs or requirements.

It shall be appreciated that the above described arrangement may of course be the subject of a number of modifications and variants without departing from the scope of the present invention.

So, for instance, an arrangement in which the quick positioning and fastening means are arranged, i.e. located in different points on the support plate should anyway be considered as falling within the scope of the present invention. In this connection, the cam lever 16 may for example be located in correspondence of the front end portion 11 of the plate 9, or in the middle portion thereof, without this meaning any departure from the scope of the invention.

Similarly, it will be appreciated that a solution in which the first and the second protrusions 19, 20 are projecting vertically from the support plate 9 to interact with respective seats 14 and 15 recessed in the sole 18 of the footwear 4, does by no means depart from the scope of the present invention.

It should be finally noticed how the materials used to manufacture the arrangement of the present invention, as well as the shapes and the sizing of the individual component parts thereof, may each time be selected so as to more appropriately meet the particular requirements or suit the particular application, again without departing from the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. Improved arrangement for fastening a footwear to a piece of sports equipment comprising:

- a base that is fastened to said piece of sports equipment in a stable manner;

- elastically deformable means that are adapted to elastically oppose the oscillation of said plate between said first position and said second position, characterized in that said support plate is provided with means enabling said footwear to be quickly positioned and fastened to said plate, in which said means are adapted to removably cooperate with corresponding conjugate abutting members, or checks, provided on the sole of said footwear.

2. Arrangement according to claim 1, characterized in that said base is connected in a stable manner to said piece of sports equipment and is provided with a pair of front brackets and a pair of rear brackets.

3. Arrangement according to claim 2, characterized in that said support plate is pivotally connected at said front end portion thereof to • said front pair of brackets by means of a pivot that is located transversally with respect to the longitudinal axis of said piece of sports equipment.

4. Arrangement according to claim 2, characterized in that, under resting conditions, the rear end portion of said support plate is contained within said rear pair of brackets, in contact with the upper surface of said piece of sports equipment, possibly through the interposition of said base.

5. Arrangement according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said quick positioning and fastening means comprise a temporary locking element, as well as a first seat and a second seat provided in correspondence of said front end portion and said rear end portion of said support plate, respectively.

6. Arrangement according to claim 5, characterized in that said temporary locking element is constituted by a cam lever having its fulcrum along a vertical axis in correspondence of said rear end portion of said support plate.

7. Arrangement according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said conjugate abutting or check elements are constituted by a first and a second protrusion projecting downwards from said sole in correspondence of the toe portion and the heel portion, respectively, said first protrusion and said second protrusion being so shaped as to be able to fit by the coupling of shapes into said first and said second seat, respectively.

8. Arrangement according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that the actuation of said temporary locking element causes said first protrusion and said second protrusion to engage said first and said second seat, respectively, and to be locked therein, thereby determining a quick fastening of said footwear to said piece of sports equipment.

9. Arrangement according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that said first protrusion is arranged in a position which is set back from the toe, approximately in the zone of the metatarsus of the foot.