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Dude, Bummer: Discontent Swells Over Big Boards
Longboarders call paddle-boarding 'surfing with training wheels'
By Katherine Thompson
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Posted Sep 27, 08 5:13 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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As if surfers don't already have enough problems, novices are swarming their beaches to bogart the waves. Or that's what they'll tell you if you ask about the growing trend of stand-up paddle-boarding, or SUP. Quicker—and much bigger—than a longboard, the paddle board is like "a Mack Truck" afloat, one surfer tells the Christian Science Monitor.
SUP adherents tout the boards' ease and addictiveness, but with beaches already crowded and surfers enduring long waits for good breaks, some see no room for the 10-foot-long, extra wide and thick apparatus. "You’re like, 'really, did that just happen?'" one traditional surfer says of being cut off by a paddler. "Too bad there isn’t a bike lane for stand up surfers."