Patent ID: 6082767
Filing Date: 2000-07-04
Classification: A63C,Y10T

Abstract:
An athletic pole including a handle, a shaft, and a handle-to-shaft transition assembly, said transition assembly adapted for allowing the handle to articulate and for minimizing rotational motion of the handle relative to the shaft during pole operation, said transition assembly comprising:(a) an enlarged shaft base on said shaft;(b) an enlarged handle base on said handle;(c) said shaft base comprising:(i) a handle-base-engaging surface;(ii) a raised alignment post on said handle-base-engaging surface;(iii) axial splines formed with the alignment post; and(iv) radial splines extending along the handle-base-engaging surface of the shaft base; and(d) said handle base comprising:(i) a shaft-base-engaging surface comprising spline grooves complementary to the radial splines and the axial splines of said shaft base, and spline groove pairs extending parallel to and flanking radial portions of said spline grooves, wherein the spline groove pairs receive the axial splines that flank the particular axial spline of the shaft base received by a radial portion of a spline groove during a particular handle articulation; and(ii) axial extensions of the radial portions of the spline grooves, said axial extensions engaging lie radial splines of the shaft base during handle articulation, the handle base and the shaft base being biased together by a tension force into a mating, coaxially aligned position when any bending forces applied to the pole are insufficient to overcome the tension force, the handle being pivotable to an articulated position relative to the shaft upon the application of a predetermined bending, force on the pole sufficient to overcome the tension force, the splines and grooves functioning to restrict rotational motion of the handle relative to the shaft both when the handle is in the coaxially aligned position and in the articulated position.