Our story
Meet the story of the LUSTI brand as told by the owner and founder of the company, Mr. Luštince.
IT ALL STARTED WITH A SNOWBOARD
I was born and grew up in Žacléř, a small town in the Giant Mountains, where I spent my free time in winter mostly on the ski lift. Although I never raced, I always enjoyed skiing and I think I ski pretty well.
As time went on, however, winter sports expanded to include snowboarding, and since I like to try new things, snowboarding naturally interested me a lot. In those days, however, it was not common to go to the store to buy a snowboard, let alone have any choice. Since I've always been handy with my hands and can make a lot of things myself, I thought I'd try to make my first snowboard.
HARD BEGINNINGS
Žacléř used to be a mining town and so it was almost clear that when I was deciding where to go after primary school, I would head in this direction. I graduated from the mining apprenticeship in Malé Svatoňovice, majoring in "repairer of mining machines and equipment". I assumed that I would spend my whole life in the mine. However, in connection with the upcoming liberalisation of coal prices and the loss of competitiveness, mining was terminated on 31 December 1992. The mine then operated for six months in liquidation, but what then?
At the time I was building a house, had a wife at home, a two-year-old daughter and another daughter on the way. Around this time I was also making my first snowboard. However, manufacturing was, as they say, "boiling water". I had never looked at any company that made skis or snowboards, so I started with the trial and "error method". The first products were not perfect, but still, one friend wanted a snowboard, then another, and so came the idea to start making snowboards for a living. I had to take care of my family somehow. But the worst thing is that no one is waiting for you with any new product. snowboardů živit. Nějak jsem se o rodinu postarat musel. Nejhorší však je, že na Vás s jakýmkoliv novým výrobkem nikdo nikde nečeká.
The beginnings were very difficult. I didn't even know what the machines where snowboards and later skis were made were supposed to look like. Fortunately, I have good technical thinking and manual dexterity, so I made the tools myself and figured out how skis and snowboards should be made. Nowadays everything looks easy, but just figuring out how to actually make a mould for skis and snowboards when you've never seen one before is not easy. lyže a snowboardy asi tak měly vyrábět. Dnes už všechno vypadá jednoduše, ale už jen zjistit, jak se vlastně dělá forma na lyže a snowboardy, když jste ji nikdy neviděli, není snadné.
I did everything by hand. First I started by drawing the ski or snowboard on a sheet of metal, then I cut it out with a saw and gradually worked my way to a form. And I didn't even know if skis were even made in those shapes. Moreover, I had very little money at the beginning, so I had to start making machines. I'm a mine locksmith, I know how to weld and work with iron, but how do you make a press like this if you don't even know what it should look like? Fortunately, I have to say that the machines I have built have always worked very well.
LAST HOPE
In the very beginning I had a partner , but after the first setbacks he disappeared and I was left only with debts with my bank. A year later, another person ordered a larger order of snowboards, which he took but didn't pay. When I was completely broke and really didn't know how to proceed, an inquiry from an Austrian company for a hundred snowboards came out of the fax machine.
We were supposed to meet at a hotel at 11:00 at night. I took the last money I had, got an interpreter, and off we went. We waited there until 1:00 in the morning, but no one came. We got up to leave and I lost the last vestiges of hope. But on the way to the parking lot we met a man and saw him enter the hotel. It was him and we agreed to make a hundred snowboards.
We drove home with the feeling that the times were finally looking up. But the debts I had were huge, and how to buy the materials to make a hundred snowboards? So I went to the bank again to apply for another loan. At first they thought I was joking, but for me it was the last hope. I explained to them that if they loaned me more money, there was a good chance that I would pay them back, if not, it probably wouldn't happen because I just didn't have it.
Eventually we came to an agreement and I walked away with a new loan. We placed an order with an Austrian company and eventually started to produce for them on a regular basis. I paid off the debts within a few years and could slowly start to develop the company further.
Construction of the new hall and the first LUSTi skis
We started to do quite well, so in 2000 we had our current production hall built and our first skis were made. These skis were without any design, logo or branding, just plain, bare skis. They were different on the slopes and attracted a lot of interest. Since they were mostly owned by friends of mine, no one called them anything other than "Lušťovky" after my last name. It was only a step to the current name LUSTi. At that time, I was also approached by my coach Filip Marek, whose daughter raced and he wanted her to race on Czech LUSTi skis. Moreover, my two daughters were also skiing competitively, so why not ride on my skis.
I always wanted to make the best quality skis and sell them for the lowest price. So we made classic, honest sandwich skis, with the construction that world-class race skis had and have, which means that where wood is supposed to be wood is just wood, where titanal is titanal - the skis are not "cheated" and don't need any nonsense embellishments that just support marketing. The chosen path has proven itself. At that time, skis of a new and unknown brand were mainly bought by excellent skiers because of their handling characteristics, which turned out to be one of the best advertisements. In the flood of constant product range expansion and high volume of work, with no time left for marketing, it turned out that the best advertising is customer satisfaction, which spreads awareness of the new brand further on the slopes among the skiing population.
The new face of LUSTi
Since 2013 we have been working with a designer who has given the skis a new face. Above all, the unification of style, colours and fonts to symbolize vigour, purity, simplicity and modern style.
The whole collection is very complete and the LUSTi skis are recognizable at a glance. Today, LUSTi's production reaches about 6000 pairs of skis per year. The production is mainly focused on downhill skis, our offer is very wide, you will find all possible types of skis, even skis that meet FIS regulations. But we also produce high quality snowboards (both freestyle and racing "slalom"). You can also find freestyle skis in our offer and we have recently started production of skialp racing skis.
What's next?
Currently we are starting to focus on summer production, namely the production of longboards, wakeboards and kits. And of course we are constantly expanding and renewing our range of skis and snowboards. By buying new machines we are trying to improve the quality of production and thus to push our products further.
