Bicycle Polo anyone?

[FONT=Book Antiqua]most unfortunately not: water polo is the only polo which enjoys even the mildest popularity around here.[/FONT]

bel
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if it doesn't have wheels, it's broken

p38lightning said:

This from the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson:

"When classes are over for the day most Wednesdays at the University of Arizona, the mallets come out, the bikes are unlocked, and the game-Polo- begins on the grassy mall. About a dozen riders usually show up, most of them on older mountain bikes-who wants to risk damage from what are bound to be stray mallet whacks to an expensive machine? The game puts a premium on rider skills, with riders racing, chasing, checking and skidding as they try to score, although goals are often in shorter supply than minor accidents, along with no small amount of laughter."

The photo shows several unsuspended Mt. bikes with only rear brakes, which seem to be single speed conversions. This sounds like a heck of a lot of fun,
and new life for that long neglected bike in the back yard.

Do any of you play this?

I had a bunch of friends who were pretty good racers in college. The other thing that they liked to do, besides "polo" and bumper bike,was indoor crits. There were a couple guys who had apartments that had a floor plan where you could walk a circle around the house. They'd move all the furniture out of the way and do crits. Every 10 laps they'd drink a shot... At the beginning the laps were every 7-10 seconds if there were no crashes so things got pretty rowdy pretty fast. By about 50 laps in most people would slow down to about a minute a lap and then they'd swap out a new group of 3-5 "racers." Needless to say, watching was almost as fun as (and a lot funnier) "racing" and a lot less painful. I'm sure these guys never got any security deposits back from any landlords...

Heh-heh.

Back in the day (the early 70's), we used to play Bicycle Soccer. Required to play were anything on two wheels, a soccer ball, and a quiet residential street. Never figured out how to do throw-ins, and it usually degenerated into demolition derby before too long. The guys with toe-clips with either falling over while trying to pull one foot out to make a kick, or were falling over when their bike "pogo'd" over the down, empty pedal.

My very first multi-speed bike (some blue 10-speed Sears piece of [censored], made in Austria), made it through two of these matches. During the third, I stood on the front brake, shifted weight forward to prepare to kick the ball, and the front wheel folded up at a right angle. Judicious stomping got the thing rideable again (albeit with a disconnected front brake).

The Sears scrap metal was replaced by an English Falcon road bike shortly thereafter. That bike never saw a bicycle soccer match.

corin said:

I had a bunch of friends who were pretty good racers in college. The other thing that they liked to do, besides "polo" and bumper bike,was indoor crits. There were a couple guys who had apartments that had a floor plan where you could walk a circle around the house. They'd move all the furniture out of the way and do crits. Every 10 laps they'd drink a shot... At the beginning the laps were every 7-10 seconds if there were no crashes so things got pretty rowdy pretty fast. By about 50 laps in most people would slow down to about a minute a lap and then they'd swap out a new group of 3-5 "racers." Needless to say, watching was almost as fun as (and a lot funnier) "racing" and a lot less painful. I'm sure these guys never got any security deposits back from any landlords...

Yes yes yes!
Polo is awesome!
There's groups polo-ing it up all across the country - I know Portland and Chicago for sure, and here in Seattle we have twice a week.

There's bike polo with rules: bikepolo.combikepolo.comOpen ↗

And then there's what we play: axlesofevil.orgmain.phpOpen ↗

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Even better with Beer 😄

I know, way late to revive this old thread.

Bike Polo is alive and well in Tucson, AZ.

We play every Weds evening from 5pm-7:30pm (usually later) at the UA Mall (Cherry & University). Afterwords, it's pizza and beer at "No Anchovies".

Only thing that is required is a bike (ANY kind of bike). There are plenty of mallets to borrow. Most of them homemade.

Mallets are to be used in the right hand only. Some of the more dedicated players have the rear brake switched to the left hand lever.

It's all just pick-up games, and everyone is invited to play.

See you out there if I haven't already!

p38lightning said:

This from the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson:

"When classes are over for the day most Wednesdays at the University of Arizona, the mallets come out, the bikes are unlocked, and the game-Polo- begins on the grassy mall. About a dozen riders usually show up, most of them on older mountain bikes-who wants to risk damage from what are bound to be stray mallet whacks to an expensive machine? The game puts a premium on rider skills, with riders racing, chasing, checking and skidding as they try to score, although goals are often in shorter supply than minor accidents, along with no small amount of laughter."

The photo shows several unsuspended Mt. bikes with only rear brakes, which seem to be single speed conversions. This sounds like a heck of a lot of fun,
and new life for that long neglected bike in the back yard.

Do any of you play this?

Sounds like fun. Bike polo. Yeah you might want to play with a cheaper bike.

There are too much crazy sports nowadays. First the horse polo and now bike polo although it would interesting to watch.