As some of you might know, Kåre and Helge at Bergsjøstølen Hotel invested in a Sesitec System 2.0 cable park. Now it’s set up permanenty in wintertime, so anyone who want can come and ride when the wind isn’t blowing :)

Just after Christmas my brother and I came for a visit along with some friends itching to ride. Here’s a video made with my brand new GoPro HD Hero 2

Kite'n'Cable from Andreas Toverud on Vimeo.

The snow have still to show here up in the far north due to the warmest winter in many decades, so instead of freezing our asses off in the just-above-freezing-temerature water we decided to go south:) Fearless Play had arranged a trip to Morocco, so Helge and I packed all our kitegear and jumped on a plane to Africa!

Fearless Play is an activity group introducing kids and teenagers to extreme sports. On a regular basis they arrange a extreme sport camp calles X-camp on the western coast of Norway involving paragliding, rafting, surfing, downhill bicycle riding, and kitesurfing. This winter they will also arrange Fearless Winter; A winter camp with snowkiting, cable park riding, dog sleding, down hill sledding and ice klimbing.

Having heard nothing more about the trip than that we were going to Morocco and that I had to buy a plane ticket to Agadir (wherever that was), I arrived at the airport and hooked up with the rest of the guys. Pretty easy to spot them dragging a ton of kite gear around:P We rented a taxi and drove 4 and a half hours (1 and a half hour according to Helge) to the hotell where we were staying in a small town called Essouira. Over the week that followed Helge tought us his new time stand; Surf Time, which is more or less within a couple of hours (if he didn`t get hungry all of a sudden and had to get food, which happened about once an hour)

Local music: When we arrived at the hotel, they had brought a local band to play traditional Morrocan music. I imagine it must be just as strange for them to see traditional Norwegian folk music, but even so.. a very strange yet cool experience.

Exhausted by the long trip we went straight to bed after the band had stopped playing. There was still plenty of time to party in the nights to come!

Amazing sunset: When the sun went down in the ocean and darkness crept up we witnessed one of the most beautifull sunsets in the world. Dust from the Sahara desert blows up in the atmosphere and lights the horizon on fire!

The next day, the wind was blowing and we had some pretty decent waves rolling in. After a couple hours of riding I decided to test the new Hadlow ID kite that Helge had just got his hands on before we left Norway. I had met one of the Morrocan PKRA riders and lended him my Hadlow Pro kite while I was using the ID. I will come back with a full review as soon as I have riden it more, but so far it feels like a rock solid mellow version of the Hadlow Pro.

We kept riding untill all the other surfers and kiters had gone home into yet an other beautifull sunset.

Hadlow ID: An easy to ride, 4 line mellow version of the high octane Hadlow Pro kite. A good choice for intermediate tp pro riders who like the comfort of extra depower and relaunchability without the 5th line.'

We had wind the next day as well and used the most of it experimenting with innovative use of GoPro cams in kites, on helmets, control bars, rum bottles, turtles and what not :P Helge is making a movie from the trip which I will post as soon as it`s ready. Unfortunately the wind decided not to show up for the rest of the week so we spent the rest of the trip riding ATVs and camels, surfing, shoping and eating a lot of dodgy food that tasted absolutely awesome!

The next trip is already planned; Snowkite Masters in Serre Chevallier just after Christmas :D

Since coming back from Rhodes, things haven't been quite the same. Suddenly water temperatures of 10 degrees Celsius feels a lot colder and riding bindings in water that cold is pure agony. So I decided to look around for a better solution and came up with this:

Cold weather gear:  Dry suit, gloves, hoodie, socks and the new Hyperlite Marek boots and System bindings

The biggest problem with wearing boots in really cold weather is that you have to get in and out of them. And for us not lucky enough to have a smooth sandy beach to to that on, you have to do it in the water. Which means that even though you have a closed toe boot, you still have to swim around barefooted. You can also wear wetsuit socks, but this makes it difficult to get into the bindings.

My solution was to buy the new Hyperlite System bindings (no strings attached). I used them with my Flexifoil Hadlow wakestyle board, but any other board with 6,5” insert spacing will work.

What I like:

First of all: this system looks awesome on the board, and even though its not the most important part it was a big factor in me choosing these over the Ronix One. Secondly, you can easily put these on with wetsuit socks under even before you go down to the spot. Kind of like snowboard boots:) Really nice for extra cold days. An other thing I love is the comfort of knowing your feet are properly protected when walking over rough terrain and rocks to get into the water.

The snow has already fallen here in the night and the water temperature is about 5 degrees, but I stay warm and comfy in these boots even for longer sessions. Been riding them for three days straight now and love them so far. The weight of the system is pretty good! Lighter than my old LF Unions, but probably a bit heavier the lightest on the market.. Didn’t bother me though. And last; I love the Boa lacing which enables you to tighten the boot around your foot as tight as you like. This combined with the ankle lacing gives you the option to go as flexible or stiff as you want. Hopefully they’ll put in a separate Boa lacing for tightening the ankle on the next model instead of the regular laces.

What I don’t like:

Even though the boots are really nice, the bindings them selves need some work. On my snowboard I ride the SP Fastec bindings which are AWESOME, and I would love to be able to mount them on my wakeboard instead of these. The bindings are not as easy to get into as you would hope, and doing so whilst floating around struggling with a jumpy kite is not an easy feat.  The toe cap on the binding is designed in a way that doesn’t make sense to me at all but it does the job. Once you get into them they give you a nice firm hold with good contact and quick response. The straps keeping the boot in place glitched a couple of time whilst doing quick turns or hard landings so I had to tighten them again and I can see this becoming a problem once they get a bit worn. But time will show. At least those parts should be easy to swap for parts from your local snowboard store if it becomes a problem.

Conclusion:

If you love bindings and ride in cold water, at rocky beaches or hate cutting your feet getting into the water, these are the boots for you! Despite the things I don’t like I will keep buying and riding these bindings because they work way better than any other solution I've tried:)

If you got something better, let me know!

Close up of the Marek boot and System binding

Update: Just dropped by their website and saw they had released the 2012 model. Only change I saw was the toe cap, and I expect the new one will work a lot better… Liked the colors of the old boot better though

My girfriend and I recently went on a vacation to Prasonisi, Rhodos to kitesurf. Definitely the best spot I’ve ever been to (when there weren’t too many windsurfers and German swimming tourists:P). 30+ in the water, wind almost every day and perfect flatwater!

Here are some images from our trip:D