Last Winter – Tom Honey.

Published on: 15th June, 2010

Tom Honey is one of the UK’s best jibbing talents, he’s got an immense trick list and he has the balls to take his indoor rail ripping to the streets too!

Each winter Tom hops across the pond seeking bigger, better and more gnarly features, so we caught up with Tom and quizzed him about what he did Last Winter.

Shouts out and thanks to Laurence Crossman for the photography of Tom.  www.laurence-ce.com

What went on last winter, where were you?

I was in Big White, Canada.

So FoTP heard that you spent this season working in a Canadian snowpark, how did that come about? Why didn’t you fancy Europe?

I’ve always done the Canada thing really never ridden much in Europe apart from a couple of odd weeks last year. I really don’t get the whole chalet type host seasons or whatever, I just hear stories of people working there asses of to ride 4 hours a day or something. I would much rather go to Canada, where I can ride a lot while working a good job. This year I got a great setup, living with my girlfriend in Kelowna which is about a 40 minute drive to Big White where I’m working Park Crew. Its good.

Working for a living is hard, but digging for a living must be unbelievably hard. What sucked about digging out rails first thing in the morning every time it snowed?

Yea there’s lots of jobs you don’t really hear about. I start my day unrolling and putting up a bunch of fences all around the Park separating different parts like border cross, pipe, large lane, etc, then chicanes to slow people down coming in. Next up I open all the features. So if it’s dumping every day for a week it does get a bit tiring digging everything out everyday. January was all a bit like that. Still we got our secret pow stashes in the park!

Being a ‘parky’ or shaper you must have got some pretty sweet perks, like hitting stuff before it opened. Does anything or any one day particularly stand out?

Yea its good. Always get in the park on my days off before it’s open and have some good snow dice sessions after were done each day or in the break before night riding. Guinea pigging jumps can be pretty fun. Whenever jumps are built or changed we’ve got to test them before we open them, so you pretty much just use the force and send it from the top.

Did any of your boys from CAS come to Big White and rip this winter with you?

Yea a few guys came out not as many planned, we had a terrible snow year in Kelowna so kept it pretty mellow all winter.

So who came to see you and what actually happened, we keep hearing rumours about mega-edits?

Damo and Rick came for a week, we filmed a bit around the hill one day Doyle might edit it and you might see it one day. JR (Jonny Russel) been here for a while now haven’t got round to any filming yet (apart from the Elph) but hopefully this week we are headed to Seymour with the boys for a little trip so that should be good then fully on it for the rest of the year.

When you aren’t working, what are you doing?

I’m at the hill 7 days a week, 4 days I’m there 8-5 (even when I’m not working) and 3 days a week 8am – 8pm when we’ve got night riding. Everyday it’s an hour travelling there and back, so I’m usually asleep by 11. I’m looking forward to summer!

Are you stoked on how you spent your winter and would you do the same work and shred season again?

Yea winter was good, pretty chill. Hopefully we’ll get way more snow in the city and around next year got the drop in ramp ready and waiting. I’ll be doing the same thing again next year I reckon.

Thanks? Stephanie, Duncan@Bond Clothing, Anton@Stephchild, Ashbury, Flux, Damo@STANDINGsideways, Masa, TSA, JR, Lil’Will, SI, Big L, Killer, Zach&Mac attack, Charles&Jasper KH, Nordberg and Whitlock.

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