Equipment carrier and method of using same

Claim 1

A carrier comprising: a body member having end, side, top and bottom walls for defining a long, narrow hollow interior which is adapted to receive equipment, said member being boxlike in configuration and having a plurality of soft, pliable walls; said side, top and bottom walls being substantially longer in their respective widths relative to the widths of the end walls to enable the body member to receive and to store long, narrow athletic equipment, such as skis; wheel means for supporting the carrier rollably along a supporting surface; one of said walls including a long narrow compartment; a single rigid panel for rigidifying said one of said walls and supporting said equipment, said panel being disposed within said long narrow compartment; fastening means for affixing to the exterior of said one of said walls said wheel means, said fastening means extending through a portion of said long narrow compartment and through said rigid panel; each one of the other walls having means defining a compartment therewithin, each one of said compartments having a given dimension and having closure means for closing the respective compartments; each one of said compartments extending over substantially the entire interior surface area of its corresponding wall; a plurality of impact absorbing panels, for distributing forces exerted against the exterior of said walls over the surface of at least one of said panels; each one of said panels being disposed within a corresponding compartment; said compartment having a dimension somewhat less than the given dimension of said corresponding panel; each one of said panels being flexible end-to-end about its midplane extending transversely of the given dimension for permitting said panels to be received within each of their corresponding compartments; and each one of said panels being flexed about its midplane within the interior of its compartment for impact absorbing purposes and for tensioning said compartment to cause its corresponding wall to be maintained in a taut tensioned aesthetically pleasing manner.