New Zealand's Olympic Committee is hoping Kiwi's will go goofy for skateboarding ahead of the Tokyo Olympics this summer.

The Great Olympic Skate Roadshow is trucking around Aotearoa, visiting 45 towns in 41 days, aiming to subvert the general public's preconceptions of the new sports entering this year.

To do so, the roadshow has the aid of a giant, 800kg, 12-metre long skateboard, which they are hoping will soon be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest functioning board.

The skateboard is currently in the Bay of Plenty, visiting Rotorua today and heading to Whakatane/Ohope tomorrow.

A competition, in which several Tauranga residents finished in the runner-up category, saw the board named Eke Tahi, meaning Ride as One, which is the message the roadshow is trying to share.

Scaled up 18 times from a standard sized board, Eke Tahi has seven layers of material complete with a sandblasted resin on top to give it the feel of real grip tape, which even the pros admit feels close to the real thing.

Yesterday, the skateboard was in Tauranga doing the rounds at Mount Maunganui Surf Club, Blake Park skatepark and Arataki skatepark.

Skateboarding, along with surfing, sport climbing, karate, baseball and softball, has been added to the Olympic schedule with hopes of engaging with a wider audience.

The roadshow aims to shine a light on the new additions.

With the amount of kids and adults coming to check out the massive skateboard, the roadshow appears to be doing the trick.

'We have had a lot of happy faces,” says James Delaney, the Great Olympic Roadshow's skate ambassador.

'We had a kid come down before and it was his birthday and he got a skateboard for his birthday so he was stoked to see this.

At 800kg and 12-metres-long it might be the biggest functioning skateboard in the world.

'It is all about, excuse the pun, getting on board. It is about kids seeing it as a legitimate sport. It has been a bit of an underground scene for a while. I was quite personally surprised at just how big the scene is.”

In the Bay of Plenty, the scene is strong. The Blake Park vert ramp, at 14-foot high, is the highest in the nation. The area also has a rich heritage with marquee names such as Cale Tolley, Curtiss Osbourne and Shaun Boucher synonymous with the region.

Taupo's Bowman Hansen, a future Olympic hopeful and good friend of Mount Maunganui skateboarder Boucher, is travelling the nation with another top Kiwi carver in Matt Markland as part of the roadshow.

He is hoping seeing the sport at a prestigious event like the Olympics can change perceptions.

'It just shows that the sport itself has evolved in a more positive way compared to the general public's view on it in the early 90s late 80s,” says Hansen.

'It is not just a kid's toy, it is really one of the most technical sports that you can do. It is a lot easier to look at then actually do.

'After the Olympics, parents are going to look at it and realise you can make something out of skateboarding because we have got to try and support the kids a little bit more.”

The deck of ‘Eke Tahi' features a design by Hamilton-based Ben Bartels depicting the tough journey an athlete must undertake to make the Olympics.

That journey is now one which includes six more disciplines and Markland is hopeful that seeing his sport at the Olympics will help inspire the next generation of Kiwi skateboarders.

'I am stoked,” he says.

'Growing up it was something that I never saw going that far so when I heard it was in the Olympics I was like ‘Let's go!'

'Just bringing awareness that there are these other sports gives everybody a chance to achieve gold.”

After the Bay of Plenty visit, it is back to the grind for the roadshow, with hopes ‘Eke Tahi' can drop in as far south as Bluff before heading back to Auckland's ‘The Cloud' centre, where it will remain for the duration of the Games.

The record-breaking board's ride around the nation will no doubt help inspire the youngsters who get the chance to see it.