Skateboarding and Nordic skiing merge in endurance sport made by St. Louisan

St. Louis native Enrique Cubillo felt there was something missing in the world of endurance sports.

A former cyclist and competitive speed skater, Cubillo was looking for a new cross-training challenge. He was a fan of Nordic skiing and wondered if there was a way to put a new spin on the 60-year-old sport.

That curiosity led him to create SpikeBoarding, a fusion of cross-country skiing and endurance long boarding. Some have said the sport reminds them of stand-up paddle boarding, though Cubillo notes that SUP requires different physical skills. At first look, SpikeBoarding is skateboarding while using a single Nordic ski pole to propel the body forward. 

But Cubillo, who founded the SpikeBoard company SUSOIX (suh-soy) in 2010, is an enthusiast for promoting the more technical aspects of the sport. SpikeBoarding combines the upper-body movement of cross-country skiing with the lower-body motions of skateboarding. By maintaining the proper technique of SpikeBoarding’s three propulsion strokes, boarders can cruise at fast speeds around closed competitive loops, up steep mountain routes (as Cubilio did when he SpikeBoarded to the top of California’s Mt. Tamalpais a few years ago), or ride the open road on the way to work.

Cubillo created kinetic movements he says are completely new to the world of endurance sports. Just like the four strokes of swimming, these three propulsion strokes are the fundamentals of SpikeBoarding: Stand Up Spike (SUS), Cubi-X-Cross Stroke (CXC), and Inside Cubi-X-Cross Stroke (ICXC). Each stroke builds full body, balanced strength and endurance with constant core activation.

Always down for a little competition, Cubillo and SUSOIX are putting on a series of Stand Up Spike King Of Mountain Racing and Queen Of Mountain events across the country. SUSOIX will offer $2,000 in prize money to the first male athlete who can beat Cubillo up a three-mile summit race using the SUS stroke. The SUSOIX Queen of the Mountain prize will go to the first female athlete that can make it to the summit as an effort to promote SpikeBoarding among women. Cubillo says there could be a race at Missouri’s Mt. Taum Sauk in the future.

“Lance Armstrong refused [to race]. Why not call him up and ask: If he is so in love with finding new challenges, then why not race a man 9 years his senior?” he jokes.

Here, Cubillo shares some scoop with SLM for those brave enough to hop on a SpikeBoard:

You’re a graduate of Clayton High School. What would your high school self think of what you’ve created? I’d have gone nuts for it. Even more so than now. I played water polo and swam. My coach Wally Lunt would have loved seeing SpikeBoarding fuel me and my mates. Plus, I’d have been commuting to school on a board instead of a bike. My girlfriend would have loved it! SpikeBoarding rips you like mad and powers strength and conditioning for swimming like crazy.

You’ve got a day to take someone on a SpikeBoarding adventure in St. Louis. Where do you ride? Once they learned the sport to the intermediate phase, I’d take them to Forest Park. It’s a great warm up. The loops on Wydown are divine.

If a reader is not quite a triathlete, what workouts can you recommend to prep the body for SpikeBoarding? Start with dry land drills and Spike Basing.

Will SpikeBoarding work for urban commuters wanting to ride to work, or is it tough with the starts and stops of city traffic? Yes, it will. Watch this contractor get to work every day in NYC.

SpikeBoarding is recreation that becomes logical transportation and lifelong, full-body activation of all the mechanisms the human body fires on. Strength, endurance, bilateral balance with constant core activation.

The question really becomes: Does a person want to dedicate time to learning a sport that will deliver strength, endurance, plus balance all at once for recreation and transportation? If the answer is yes, then becoming a student of SpikeBoarding is a logical choice. For young people, is there a desire to produce higher levels of strength, endurance plus balance and massive core along with bilateral limb development for soccer, lacrosse, football, wrestling? The sport of balanced strength will deliver this.

Your website says that no laboratory human performance study of SpikeBoarding has been done yet. But if you were to run a study, what would you love to prove about the benefits of SpikeBoarding? I’d speculate four findings: One, the CXC stroke will help increase the incidence of double footedness in soccer players while raising their stamina and core power. Two, the SUS stroke will help increase the incidence of switch hitting skill set in baseball players while raising their stamina and core power for batting. Three, the off-season practice of SpikeBoarding (using all three strokes) will help rise the stamina and core power of all hockey players. And four, the practice of SpikeBoarding by all orchestra musicians will help alleviate a great deal of their static playing position injuries.

SpikeBoarding was innovated seven years ago. Where would you love to see it go in the next seven? I am saddened about not having more women participating. Where are they and why do they hold back? They are invited 100 percent equally. In seven years, I’d like to see women as 80 percent of the world’s best SpikeBoarders. St. Louis rules for Stand Up Spike and SpikeBoarding! Love to see the sport explode there. But no women. Where are the women?

Interested in trying SpikeBoarding? Call 917-566-3386 or visit SUSOIX.com to learn more SpikeBoarding coaching services offered by SUSOIX.