Elan Snowboards - Thomas Harstad Blog

Road report from Thomas

2008-05-03T07:32:25+00:00

Last time I updated this blog I a sitting on a sweaty noisy plane on my my way to the US for the Ultimate Boarder Competition( snow, surf ,skate) Well, here is how it went for me…. I landed in Reno Airport very late, almost midnight. I went to pick up my luggage, but my laggage was not there…and the competition was the next morning. So after talking to the Airline, they promised to send it straight to Tahoe next morning in time for the competition. Full of hope that my bag would make it in time, I went to my car that was parked on the airport since last time in USA, I put in the key and turned it around…nothing happened, battery was dead. This was not my day! I fianlly got someone to help me start the car, and I drove to lake tahoe. When I woke up the next morning I still did not receive my bags, and the competition was about to start. I ended up riding the contest on borrowed bindings, boots and clothes….it did not go well, I fell on every run, one time actually before the jump! Hip hip hurray!

After the contest I met up with Vianney Tissau, and we where hooting in Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows for one week. I also teamed up with Torstein Hoorgmo, Juuso Lavisto and Chaz Guldemond for a session on some really good jumps in Alpine together with Standard films.

The last 2 days I have been in LA, visiting my shoe and boot sponsor Etnies and 32, I stayed with my team manager Eddie Lee, and been surfing 2 times a day. It was really good to jump in the water after a long winter season!

Now I am sitting in the Lufthansa Lounge in LA airport LAX, using the internet for what its worth and eating as much free food as I can…and maybe tasting a glass or two of some sleepy wine. Its pretty funny to look at all those business people sitting here in their suites writing important Emails, they just don’t look too happy. They should just snowboard more is what I am thinking.

But season is far from over….I will get only one day in Norway before I will jump on a new flight and go to north of Finland for a Storbis film shoot. I will also go to Hemsedal and Stryn in Norway…..and after that to Mt Hood. So there is plenty of fun to come!

Hope you all got some good spring riding, some slushy slashes and soft landings! If you have some fun stories to tell, good slams or whatever, just post it in the comment section!

Peace out fella mountain goats! Thomas

Update from Thomas Harstad

2008-04-14T06:19:23+00:00

Its been couple of weeks since my last update, I guess I have been busy snowboarding and traveling.

On the 29th Apr I left the USA and flew directly to Switzerland. The plan in Switzerland was to go heli boarding for 6 days with O’neill for their upcoming team video. I arrived Champery eager to got to fly helicopter and ride powder….but when I arrived it was windy, foggy and snowy….heavy wet snow. So for te first 5 days we ended up sitting in the Hotel waiting for the sun to come out, and occasionally go ride the Les Crosets park, witch was actually pretty fun. On the 6th day the sun finally came out, and I was ready to fly…..but ofcourse this day the avalanche danger was just too high, so we had to cancel the backcountry mission.

The staff in Les Crosets had prepared a huge 30m park jump on the mountain, so we ended up jumping that one the whole day filming from the helicopter and also getting a couple of freeride runs from the pilot. A great day! Next day I flew to Norway, since I have not been home for 9 weeks it was nice to be home for couple of days.

I only spent 5 days in Norway, and right now I am sitting on a plane on the way to USA again. The journey goes first to Lake Tahoe where I will ride a slopestyle competition on Sunday, after that there is a surf and skateboard competition in Los Angeles the following days, and the best allround board rider will be crowned. I think it will be fun contest with many surf, skate and snowboard pros battling each other for the all round title. On the 19th my french photographer friend Vianney Tissau is coming to USA, we will go shoot for a week or so, hopefully it will be productive. We usually get good photos when we work together.

Season is far from over, there is the Snowboarder Magazine superpark in Mammoth, Hemsedal spring session and some other stuff planned in Europe and Norway.

But more on this later…...I need to get some sleep if I can on this noisy plane now.

If anyone wants to follow the competition I am entering in USA just visit the website: www.ultimateboarder.com

As always, I hope you are having a great season with progression, powder,sun and friends!

Cheers,

Thomas Harstad

Tahoe for life

2008-03-17T09:54:11+00:00

Fellow riders, shredders, dudes,girls,ladies and dawgs! For you that read my last blog update, you know im in Lake Tahoe, USA…and im still here, so not much to tell about that actually. So what have I been up to lately? Hmmmm, let me think….well, I’ve been snowboarding a whole lot because we have had a lot of good weather, so no time for days off the mountain. I’ve been riding a lot of park, and got the time to practise some new moves and new jibs, this really got me pumped and motivated. Its super important to take some days during the season to just go ride, try out new tricks and get the feeling….that way it makes it easier to go film and shoot photos, you just feel more secure.

We made some backcountry kickers also, check the photo. We had a good session, and I got some film and photo shots. Later in the day I managed to catch my toe edge riding out a frs 720, and its one of my heaviest slams in a long time, I was totally unprepared for that bail and it really knocked me out. I was fine the same day, just a stiff neck….and a good slam on video:)

What else…well, I bought my own car here in the USA, a dodge durango 4×4 V8! I won some price money lately, and the dollar currancy these days are really good , and I anyway spend too much money on rental cars…..so I convinced myself that it was a smart thing to do, and bought the car. He he. Well, im really happy with the car, and hopefully it will take me around on many snowboard adventures here in the country of cars and cheap gas!

Tomorrow morning we are jumping on a backcountry kicker in Donner pass, its a pretty cool jump and I hope to get some good stuff on film, and some good photos with IJ from Snowboarder mag. In the afternoon we are heading over to Homewood, a small resort dropping straight into the Lake Tahoe, super sick view! They are making us a huge Hip, that we need to finnish and hopefully try out in the evening. After we have ridden the hip for some days, we will turn that huge pile of snow into a big ass park jump! How smart are we? We are recycling the snow….taking care of our planet (just by using a small thing called a cat machine that hardly uses gas….)

Hmmmmm, how is Europe guys? Or how is Norway? I’ve been living in the same bag for around 8 weeks straight now….I should be missing home I guess, but I am not. Sorry if I offend my close ones at home, but I am just having such a good time:)

Ok, I need to sleep now! So, cheers to all of you….hope you are having fun!

Thomas

Vans Cup, Tahoe

2008-03-03T14:54:48+00:00

Dear readers, I’m stoked you stopped by the blog again! Well, as you might remember from my last blog update, I was leaving Europe after some real hectic weeks chasing the little snow there was and doing competitions. My destination was Lake Tahoe in California USA, and thats where I am right now. I went here with Håkon Tonnesen, our filmer Nicklas and Christian Brecheis from Pleasure Magazine. Local Photographer IJ hooked us up with a sweet appartment and tickets to all the resorts around here, thanks IJ, you are the man!

First days I was here it was dumping like crazy, it snowed around 1,5m in 2 days. We spent those snowing days to build jumps ready for the sunny days to come and ride around in the forest doing powder runs, top 3 happy days for me so far this season:)

2 days later it cleared up and all the snow that had fallen was laying there just waiting to be powder sprayed or landed in….so we went straight to the jump we built the days before. It was me, Marius Otterstad and Håkon Tonnesen sessioning the jump together, it was fun and we got some good tricks. I got a bs 7 first track, so I was happy. The photographers got their shots, and we got our powder shred….so it was a perfect day!

The next days we spent shredding powder, building jumps, doin fun city jibs in Tahoe…..basically having a really good time:)

This weekend was the Vans cup here in Tahoe, slopestyle competition. It was cool to meet up with a lot of friends I have not seen in a while, and I was super stoked to get a weekend of riding with my best friends Marius Otterstad and Andreas Wiig. I don’t see them too much in the winter as they are always in the USA…. At first I was a little scared of the course, because the last jump had an insane quick pop in the takeoff and a bunch of people got hurt….but they fixed it a bit better and it worked out after some practice. I qualified for the finals, and ended up in 7th place. Andreas got 1st! I was super stoked on 7th place in a competition like the Vans cup, and Andreas was super stoked on his Victory so we went straight to the party after the contest and ended up playing black jack in the casino until 5.30 this morning. Yes, we had some drinks too…..

Following weeks I will stay here in the USA…..shooting and filming. Hopefully Europe will get more snow, so I can go there and ride some more. If not I wil stay here in the USA and keep chasing the snow wherever I have to go to find it…. I will also do a contest with snowboard, surf and skate combined here in California. More on that will come later!

Until next time, have a great day, ride the prodigy board, helium binding and have fun! He he!

Cheers mates! Thomas

Update from Thomas Harstad

2008-02-19T07:32:40+00:00

My past weeks have been quite hectic, but alot of good days. The week before ISPO tradeshow, I was traveling around Europe with photographer Espen Lystad. We went to Livigno, Mayerhofen, Scoul, Innsbruck etc.. We where hunting the snow, and found some good spots. So after a week we had quite a few good photos, and continued our trip to ISPO to meet up with sponsors, drink some tequila at the Elan booth and talk to friends you have not seen in a while. Good times!

At ISPO Frode Sandbech called me from Transworld Snowboarding, he told me Norway just got a heavy snow fall. Since Europe got warm, I jumped on the plane the next day and drove to Hemsedal with him and Mikkel Bang. We had couple of really fun riding days, built a road gap, cruised powder and did some hand rails. A good and productive trip with good friends:)

I then continued my quest for fun and snow….and the destination was France, Pyreenees for the Mathieu Crepel invitational big air contest. His event is a TTR competition in big air. It was really warm in France, full sun the whole weekend and the jump was really good. I got 3rd in the competition riding my new Prodigy board, so I was happy. I then jumped on a flight to Austria with the Storbis crew, and went to Mayerhofen for 2 days, then to Diedamskopf with Pleasure Magazine and then straight to Italy for another TTR slopestyle competition where I am right now.

I will stay here until Tuesday for some filming, then I fly to America Lake Tahoe with Storbis and Christian Brecheis from Pleasure, there we will film, shoot photos and compete in the Vans cup.

So its been some hectic weeks for me, and a little bit too many flights….and the season has just began. But dont get me wrong, I am not complaining…..how can I? I am snowboarding everyday!

Hope you readers are having a great season with no injuries and lots of powder! Until next time! Cheeeeers!

Thomas

Update from Thomas Harstad

2007-05-10T05:49:34+00:00

Ailo Backflip

Dear riders, thanks for stopping by our web site and sorry for lagging on updates… Its May, and summer is getting dangerous near…when I say “dangerous” its because the girls are starting to wear less clothes here in Norway, the water is getting warmer and my surfboards are starting to sneak into my head more and more. Winter is good, and I had a super good time with lots of good memories from this year but when summer is coming there is just something that drags me closer to the water. I hope to get some surf really soon…

For those of you that still is really keen on snowboarding this summer, I have good news! Norway has a snow record on our 2 glaciers, Stryn and Folgefonn has plenty of snow. There is so much snow that the lifts are still under the snow, and they have to dig them out for opening day. June and July will be prime months for summer snowboarding, and if you want to surf also Stryn has an amazing surf break only 2 hours from the resort. Snowboarding, party,surf and Norwegian girls…what more can you ask for? If you are on a budget, you can put up a tent both by the glacier and by the surf spot, and there is plenty of fish to catch for food. Thats what we do when we are there, its a good experience I can promise.

I still have some snowboarding to do, then my further plan is going to Slovenia for meetings with Elan, then to Amsterdam to help designing the new Oneill winter clothes, Italy for a Spy photoshhot, then to Zurich for a intro shoot for MMP new snowboard movie. So there is plenty of things to fill my time, and I will keep you all updated on stuff that happens on the road.

For those of you into Freestyle MX, my good friend Ailo is doing a MX contest in Slovenia this weekend, and I have been practising with him this week, and I can assure you some good action!

Here is some really random photos by the way, the surf and camping is from the surf break by Stryn. The MX pic is Ailo Gaup training for the event this weekend in slovenia, and the rest is some pics I took in the US and car is me taking my car home from Switzerland by train and Boat (I hate driving)

Have fun, stay positive and enjoy summer!

Greets, Thomas

Update from Thomas Harstad

2007-03-20T02:01:43+00:00

Update from Thomas Harstad Dear riders, readers, dogs and frogs! Here is a little update from my side…yes, im still in the US as Europe has poor snow conditions. This is my 4th week here in Lake Tahoe, and life is good. The powder we had the first week has now turned into water in the lake….it has been around 16 degrees the last 2 weeks, and 2m of snow has melted. Its actually really scary when you start thinking about it. We are at 3000m, and its march…its supposed to be cold. But then you look at all the trucks, sleds, planes, waste of electrisity and other kind of pollution, and its maybe not so strange this is happening. So maybe its time we all start to do something about it…remember, if the water level is raising, alot of surf breaks wont break anymore, and what do we do then? Start rollerblading? Hell no!

Anyway, so for the last weeks we have been doing park jumps, rails and all kinds of jibs…still filming for the MMP movie and Espen Lystad from Snowboarder came over here to shoot with us, so we are getting some film and photos produced for sure. I still have a long way to go before my videopart is the way I want it, but at least I am getting closer. Im not sure what my next weeks will look like, but it might be that I stay here to film couple of more weeks, then go to Superpark in Colorado and if things work out, go to Alaska to get some big mountain shots for the movie….I am not a very experienced big mountain rider, so this will be a challenge for me.

Anyway, I will keep an update on the Elan web site how the season is forming, so stop by when you are online! Keep on shredding, and if you have a chance to try out the Elan Prodigy board you should do it!

Cheers Thomas

Thomas hits California

2007-03-13T01:25:57+00:00

Hello riders, and thanks for stopping by our web page! I hope you all have been getting some good riding days so far this season, even the snow has been poor most places… After my 2 weeks in Japan, I stopped by Norway for a short visit, then I headed to Lake Tahoe in California. I got here just in the perfect time, it had been snowing for 5 days in a row and my first day here it was totally bluebird and 1,5m of light fresh powder…..it was insane! So we rode powder, built jumps and did cliffs for 4 days. Then it got really warm, and it still is, so we are in the park most of the time now..shooting jumps and waiting for it to snow again.

I will write more soon, so stop by the page from time to time!

Thomas

Japan update.

2007-02-08T03:58:47+00:00

Hello! Here is a little update from Japan. Im here with the MMP film crew and Basti Gogl from Snowboarder MBM. We are in a mountain called Niseko. The snow here is great, and its SO good to finally ride some powder again! The mountains here are super steep, but its pillow lines and giant mushroom trees to ride all over the place, so plenty off stuff to do. The sushi is of course good, so thats pretty much all I eat….there is a lot of sketchy food here also! I been here for one week now, and will stay one more…hell yea! I hope Europe gets some snow by the time I am back!

Hoooolla from Japan!

Thomas

Yo what up!!!

2006-12-05T03:39:32+00:00

Here is finally a little blog update from my side…I know its been a while. Anyway, here I am in USA, more precisely in Breckenridge Colorado. Me and Andreas Wiig started our trip the 13th of November to Los Angeles, we hang out there for 2 days visiting some friends, before finally deciding to get a flight to Denver and go to Breckenridge as the snow in Mammoth is really shaaaaait! Breck is really fun, we ride Keystone resort most of the time…they have a well groomed park with a triple line with jumps and a bunch of boxes and rails. We will stay here and try to learn some new stuff to show off for the season….he he, lets see. Anyway going home to Norway on the 21 dec, to celebrate xmas. My firther plan will be to head straight to Europe for a bunch of contests in January, then start to film with the MMP crew. Stoked on that!

Hope you all are getting some shredding done!

See ya Thomas