RicodJour wrote in
:



If you're digging sand, you don't need your foot to sink the shovel
into the pile, and that's similar to shoveling snow, so just eliminate
the foot thing straight away as it has no bearing. The reason I don't
like the bent-handled, what-trick-can-we-come-up-with-to-sell-more-
shovels is twofold. The first is that with a bent handle there is a
greater moment arm which makes tossing the snow anywhere but straight
ahead of the shovel more problematic. I toss the snow, as another
poster mentioned they did, and the bent handle requires you to have a
much tighter grip on the shovel to prevent it from rotating when
you're tossing the snow. This is due to the offset and is simple
physics. The other reason is that the shorter straight handle section
of a bent handle doesn't allow as many hand positions, and doesn't
allow your hand to slide along the shaft, which is critical when
tossing snow.



Bingo. You hit it right on the head, on all counts.

A straight shaft works the best for me, even if I end up needing to bend
over a bit more.

For me, with a single-wide driveway that's only 50-feet long, this is the
best scenario for a snow shovel:
- a 20" plastic blade with raised edges on the sides;
- no metal edge on the blade;
- a pronounced curve on the blade (for a certain technique used with dry,
light snow);
- a straight shaft.


--
Tegger