No Water Needed: 'Land Paddling' Takes Off

Here's a question: If the paddle you use is made for the asphalt, and not the water, is it really a paddle at all?

Yes, says Steve McBride, owner of Kahuna Creations, a board and paddle maker out of Ogden, Utah, whose Kahuna Big Stick is getting mad attention in the extreme-sports cross-over space.

Kind of like the paddles stand up surfers use to paddle through the ocean waves, the Big Stick is a "land paddle," designed to help long board skateboarders propel themselves down the asphalt.

While the Big Stick's shaft looks like any other hand-crafted paddle, its business end has a round, carbon-rubber tip that let's you "paddle" down the road. Different models retail for between $90 and $150.

A skater and long-time board rider, McBride says his goal was to take the grating motion -- and fatigue -- out of riding a long board over big distances.

"One thing that always bugged me about riding a skateboard is if you're kicking for a long time, it's kind of jarring, and it gets rough on the body," McBride says. "We starting thinking about stand-up paddling, and whether you could do it on land."

Turns out you can. And in a big way, too.

Kahuna Creation's Web site is full of some great land paddling tales, including the recent trek of Scott Raynor and Stephan Reinhardt, two soulful skaters who "paddled" from Oregon to Virginia on their skateboards, using the Big Stick along the way.

"When you're paddling with it, it kinda feels like you're in the water," Reinhardt says on the site. "It's just really calming." He also said the paddle helped the pair get up the Rockies, while acting as a brake when they came down the other side.

Check out this video of the pair on their paddle trek.

McBride says the trek attested to the Big Stick's durability, whose tip lasted all the way across the country.

Old-school surf pro Buttons Kaluhiokalani, pictured above, has taken to land paddling, too. Like stand up paddling on a surf board, he says it helps him get a great, upper body work out.

And while UFC fighter Kendall Grove is also featured using the Big Stick on the company's Web site, the most famous land paddler yet may be actor Matthew McConaughey.

Hollywood's "It" guy for anything outdoorsy and cool, McConaughey was recently caught by Splash News paddling his long board and Big Stick through the streets of Malibu, his dog at his side.

With winter putting a chill in a lot of paddlers' bones, and keeping many off the water, "land paddling" might be just the thing you need to feed your jones, and keep your upper body in shape during the colder months.