BE THANKFUL...

...for bike polo.

It's a sad day, I know. It's Thursday and we should meet to play some polo this afternoon, but alas, it's also Turkey day. Which, for most of us, means spending time with that group of people we call Family, no no not our polo family, but our other family... the ones who raised us, fed us, clothed us, and generally took good care of us as we grew into the magnificent people we are today. So on this Thursday with no polo, be thankful for what you have... and be happy, 'cause we will meet again on Sunday to feed our polo hunger.

ciao

Tuesday Midnight...

...come play...

To get you all on board...

Just in case you all don't follow the discussion on bikepolo.ca, I've pasted the, not so initial, initial post about the NORTH AMERICAN HARDCOURT BIKE POLO ORGANIZING BODY below for you all to read and absorb.

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Well hello.

Since the World's in Philadelphia, a concerned group of our fellow polo players have been discussing and debating how to begin what lately many of us online have been alluding to often: an organizing body, one which will help us collectively accomplish very reasonable tasks and will markedly improve the overall quality of our tournaments. Here we are presenting a plan and a process to achieve this end, wherein our first job will be to choose the host city for our North Americans in 2010. Upon completion of this task, we can begin to lay the foundation for a talented organizing body to nurture and build bike polo in the future.

NAHBPC 2010

The first order of business will be managing the bid process for NAHBPC 2010. as follows:

• November 14th 11:59pm PST: Deadline for NAHBPC bids, which can be submitted at http://bikepolo.ca/node/add/bid
• November 15th-17th: Q&A about the bids open to all, at http://bikepolo.ca/bids
• November 18th 12:01am PST: Voting opens
• November 20th 11:59pm PST: Voting closes

ORGANIZING BODY

The pilot organizing body will first be responsible for evaluating bids from candidate cities, voting on them, and choosing a host for the 2010 NAHBPC. Below, listed by region and city, are 24 members of our community who have considerable experience organizing major bike polo tournaments or otherwise have played a significant role in the development of the game in each region.

Cascadia Justin Calgary Meg Portland Leon Seattle Pieter Vancouver

Middle East Meg DC Doug NYC Paul NYC Ian RVA

Midwest Ben Chicago Chris CoMo Jonny Madison Jake Milwaukee

Northside Javier Boston Angelo Ottawa Brian Ottawa Kevin Toronto

Southeast K Really, Atlanta Jason FTL Ryan Pensacola Amandaconda Tampa Bay

Southwest Joker LA Ruckus SF Joel SF Jeff n-o-d PHX

You may be asking how and why this group of 24 was selected. As mentioned above, experience was a major factor. The experience found in this group will be invaluable in guiding our decisions in the early going. Balance was another. Care was taken to ensure the body has diversity - of experience, of involvement, of personnel, and of regional representation. At this stage, regional representation comprises four representatives from six regions, all of which will be adapted to reflect growth and change. In creating the infrastructure for this body, a more formal voting process will emerge wherein elected regional representatives will be determined from elected city representatives.

Two other possibilities were "one player, one vote" and "one city, one vote", both of which were considered seriously and debated at length. Both of these systems have obvious merit and, as mentioned above, we'll eventually be using the element of city representation. But, by themselves, these possibilities pose a significant challenge related to verifying the eligibility of voters, a task for which we have insufficient time before needing to resolve the bid process for the 2010 NAHBPC. Unfortunately, having an account on bikepolo.ca or posting a club on the clubs page is simply not, at this point, a viable way of establishing eligibility.

Establishing such a viable, democratic organizing body is well within the realm of possibility for 2010. It should be stressed that the list above is simply a provisional organizing body that will be able to confidently direct and guide our efforts until a more formal system is in place. Contacting any one of your regional representatives through bikepolo.ca with any questions you may have is strongly encouraged.

OTHER AGENDA ITEMS

Here are the other tasks that this provisional organizing body will be prioritizing further down the road.

Winter 2010: Work with major tournament organizers (NAHBPC, regional tournaments like West side, ESPI, etc) to establish a unified approach to sponsors. This effort will build off the sponsor materials originally created by the committee that organized the NAHBPC 2008 in Seattle.
Winter 2010: Establish a viable decision-making structure for the organizing body, including voting process, regions, etc..
Spring 2010: Launch a public-facing website about North American Hardcourt.
Spring 2010: Establish bid process for determining NAHBPC 2011, and work with polo communities in Europe, South America, Oceania and Asia to establish a bid process for determining the WHBPC 2011. By the time NABHPC and WHBPC roll around in summer 2010, we will already know who is hosting the 2011 tournaments.

Other potential tasks:

• Develop a "how to organize a tournament" resource.
• Examine the feasibility of creating a unified rule set for tour circuit tournaments.

ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES

1. Keep the stakes low: For the moment, we feel that we can achieve a lot with little or no budget. This may change later. But for the time being keeping finances out of the early going will greatly benefit our progress. We will simply facilitate ensuring that the sponsor money/prizes gets to the intended tournament organizers. This will better allow tourney organizers to focus on courts, housing, etc.
2. Regional representation: The benefits of coordination will be felt equally throughout all six regions mentioned above. For example, when it's time to choose the location of the Southeast Side Invite, the task will be left up to regional representatives and city reps within the region.
3. Cooperation with polo organizers beyond North America. Given the difficulty of developing a global organizing structure, we will need to work closely with polo communities in Europe, South America, Asia, Oceania - wherever else polo springs up - on issues of WHBPC, sponsors, etc. with special emphasis on maintaining consistent communication.

Our goal is to ensure that both tournament organizers and sponsors get what they need to create a consistent tournament standard. We plan to take this one careful step at a time, starting with the 2010 N.A. bid. After accomplishing this, the organizing body will look to designing a more refined, objective process by which to elect the representative body in the future, as well as begin building better relationships with prominent and potential sponsors.

THANKS

A sincere thanks to everyone who helped us in getting this far. This could not have happened without the cooperation and hard work of people in our community who love the game and want to see it flourish. Truth is, our list above could be twice the size. People from all corners of North America took the time to talk and critique, not only with those doing the typing but with each other and their local communities. It is a team game we play and it is reasonable to expect great things from our efforts toward organizing - as a team.

With great anticipation and excitement we present this work for our North American Hardcourt organizing body. Let's see what we can do.

321GO!
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the discussion has continued on the forum located here: NaHardcourt

and it seems that Austin, being grouped with the southeast for now, will have a representative to HELP spread the representation more equally across our currently giant region.(although this is not illustrated in the regional reps list above)

With all that being said, several people have expressed interest in having me (rob) help represent our region. The only reason for this is because of my role in organizing bike polo here. I'm only writing this to make it known, not to brag. (nah nah nah nah naaah nah.) This is not necessarily permanent, so if any of you feel more capable, the time will come, be patient.

I know of only a few of you who are interested in this serious NAHBP discussion, but I'd like for more of you to become interested. This is a big deal for this sport and as you can read above, it will make us more legitimate, which for our own interest could lead to us gaining more respect from our local city reps and deps. Think about the possibilities!!!

So my advice, read the discussions, ignore the bullshit bickering, and let's help shape this organizing body and how it effects us regionally/nationally/worldwide.

more to come on this topic.....

props if you read all this too!

New Orleans Tourney Re-cap

Everyone

The Ladies

The score cards

The final bracket

There were close to 20 teams, representing several different states, that showed up for New Orleans First Hardcourt Bike Polo Tournament. The Nola guys did an excellent job building boards for two courts they created in an open parking lot close to downtown. It was rainy the first day and the courts were slick, so play was slower and a lot of teams ended up tying their games.

Austin had 3 teams go out to represent our club. Mo, Jasmine, and Annie, who changed their team name from when they played in Como, did well representing our ladies. Israel, Dan, and Casey, Team Dan, also did really well, upsetting some teams who thought they were better. Miguel, Charlie and I, Team Hymen, I'm back (previously Team Hymen, I'm home), took home the Gold, giving the ATXBPSC it's first tournament win. Our team went undefeated the whole weekend with a record of 8-0-2. We even had to play our boys Team Dan and almost had to play our ladies team. Israel was voted MVP of the tournament and won an awesome Milwuakee polo guard, so watch out y'all, he is now heavily armed!

We all did well to represent our club. I hope more of you will go to some of these tournaments in the Future. They are way too much fun! The polo community is strong, indeed, and it's so worth the trip just to watch.

oohhh, another video!!!

Bike Polo Work Sample from Leah Michelle Ross on Vimeo.

Photos from Cincinnati

Cincinnati pics.

Bike Polo - ATX style

Here's the video Jacob and his crew did on bike polo. I really like how they edited and put it all together, but I'm not sure what the Fast Folks references in the beginning are really doing for bike polo. I hope they aren't alluding to us buying our equipment at Fast Folks, because I wouldn't buy something so nice to put on my Polo bike, unless of course I absolutely needed it. Cyrus, Mo, Dan, great job speaking. Good job to the rest of the club for coming out and representing bike polo, ATX style. Jacob and Leah, thanks for doing this and great work, you guys are amazing at what you do, now if only we can get you back out to play with us!

don't be too cool for brakes! ha!

Week 1 ATXGBPT 2009

So far on our trip we've hit up the Como tourney, which you already knew, Lexington Kentucky, Cincinnati Ohio, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Cleveland Ohio, and we are now in Buffalo New York. We've been playing polo and driving most of the time, and let me tell you guys, the Polo community so far has been extremely amazing in getting organized to play on an off night, arrange to get lights turned on or set up, and most importantly housing and entertaining us strangers for a night.

I can't even begin to tell you how much fun this trip has been. So far everyone has welcomed us with open arms to their courts, which are all unique in their own way, played pick up with us, talked shit with us, drank and partied with us... all for the sake of this crazy sport we call bike polo. We played on Lexington's and Cleveland's dedicated bike polo courts, rode around Cinncinati after playing on their round court by the river, we saw the Urban Velo hq in Pittsburgh, not to mention played polo with both Jeff and Brad from UV, rode around Charlie's hometown of Buffalo and played pick up in the Target parking lot. We've made friends, traded merchandise, eaten some crazy good food, seen some beautiful skylines and most importantly played polo with a bunch of different people who all love this sport.

This weekend we are hitting up both Philly and NYC, which apparently both have really great polo scenes... I hope they are as great as the last cities we've been in. Each place gets better and better, I hope this trend continues.

As much as I miss all of you in ATX, I don't really want to come back! Ha, this is too much fun! Here are some more pics from our trip!

Lexington

Cincinnati

Pittsburgh
We couldn't get a group shot of the polo guys/gals, but that's Brad who co-runs Urban Velo, and happens to be one hell of a polo player.

Cleveland

Buffalo









Coleslaw and Fries on every sandwhich, Pittsburgh style

Buffalo is a safe place!




Lexington Courts



Cincinnati Court




Cleveland Court

COMO TOURNAMENT GROUP PHOTO

THE TOURNAMENT WENT VERY WELL AND WE MET LOTS AND LOTS OF NEW PEOPLE AND REUNITED WITH A FEW ASWELL! I THINK WE HAD A VERY GOOD TURN-OUT BEING THAT WE PLAYED SOME VERY GREAT TEAMS AND DID OUR BEST TO SHOW THEM A LITTLE OF WHAT AUSTIN HAS BEEN UP TO- THE GREATEST FEELING OF ALL WAS HAVING ALMOST EVERYONE ON THE SIDELINES CHEERING FOR US AND YELLING TO KICK THE OTHER TEAMS ASS.. ALL IN ALL, IT WAS INDEED A BLAST TO BE THERE AND TO PLAY.OUR LADIES DID GOOD ASWELL AND HOPEFULLY LEARNED A FEW THINGS ABOUT OTHER TEAMS AND HOW THEY PLAY. IT WAS ALSO GREAT JUST WATCHING THE TOP TEAMS GOING AT IT AND GIVING IT ALL THEY HAD.SO THIS IS WHERE WE STAND IN THE TOURNEY...................


1.chicago
2.milwaukee
3.milwaukee
4.madison
5.phoenix
6.austin,texas

TAKING 6th PLACE OUT OF 42 TEAMS--I THINK WE DID A DAMN GOOD JOB!

THANK YOU ROBERT AND CHARLIE FOR TEAMING WITH ME AND HELPING US ALL SHOW WHAT THE ATX HAS GOT-

now time for new orleans!!!!!!!!

Pics from our trip so far!

the Lexington Crew

Day 2 of como

The como tourney was a huge success. The como guys and gals were all super nice and welcoming, and they sure know how to throw a tournament. We met teams from 7 or so states, who were also super cool. We also surprised a lot of people and have now officially put Austin on the polo-verse map. You all better be ready to step up your game, cause this sport is so much more than what we've been playing. Miguel, Charlie and I finished up tying Pheonix A team for 5th or 6th. Mo, Jasmine, Annie, and Casey played some good games Sunday, and hopefully had a really good time and learned some moves while at it. I feel like it would have been worth the trip just to see the level of play these teams are at! Amazing! I'll post some pics when I can!

First day of COMO

First Day of the Midwest Championships was amazing. So much fun was had. Annie, Jasmine, and Mo, aka team "Tough shits" did real well, with a record of 1-3. Casey teamed up with two peeps from COMO, team "Old skoal", and they had a record of 1-2-1. Miguel, Charlie, and I, aka team "Hymen, I'm home," had a record of 3-1 today, and are currently seeded in 5th place out of the 40 some odd teams playing. The competition is extreme, the first games are as intense as the last games in our tourney!!! The play is fast, the shots are on, the games are FUN! More after tomorrow!

...

Thursday Polo! Who's coming out?

We have a bunch of new shirts. We got Fruit of the Loom and Hanes 100% cotton and some 50/50. Tomorrow is the last day to get some from us for at least 2 weeks. We have some we are taking with us, but it would be cool if you guys got first run at 'em. Bug Mo at polo tomorrow or call me and let me know and I'll bring some out when and if I get a break at work!

The Dropout nov. 2009

If you guys didn't attend the Dropout release party, like me, then you may not have seen one of these little magazines yet. I got a copy from Mo the other day and have since then read through most of it. I like it. Lots of different stuff happening in there, reflective of a lot of the Austin bike scenes. I'm not going to review it, because that's not what this site is for. But, speaking of Mo, she wrote a nice little article in there about her first experiences coming out to bike polo. If you haven't seen it, you should read it. It's interesting, to me at least, to hear about how people hear and feel about what we've got going on here. I suspect a lot of you had similar experiences. Mine was. Well I hope I don't piss anyone off, but I'm going to post the article on here to see. (Sorry Scott and Leana.) If you want to read it in real life high definition, go buy a copy or find a friend who has a copy. These may suffice for some of you!

The full spread.

page 36
I really like the way they put the mallet toss photos in there! Awesome!

page 37

This week and the following...

WOW, I am patiently awaiting Thursday-Friday November 5-6! Why you ask? Well, because, that is when those of us going to COMO are leaving for the tourney and those of us traveling on for the next two weeks, hitting up polo spots across the East coast, are beginning our journey!

I know we're all getting super excited about this! The details are being finalized, we are preparing our minds, our bikes and our bags. We are going to post up stuff from our trip and from the tourneys on the blog so keep checking back from time to time while we're gone. Annie, Mo, Jasmine, Miguel, Casey, Charlie, and Frazer I can't wait for this! Let's make this the most fun possible! We will definitely learn a lot about this game of bicycle polo and about each other, let's make sure we take it in.

Those wanting to go to New Orleans on the 21st and 22nd of November for the New Orleans Hardcourt Bike Polo Open should start thinking about teams and making arrangements to get and stay down there, etc. I really hope a lot of you come down and represent our club. Mo, Charlie, Frazer and I will be ending our trip there, so expect to see us there the day or two before the tourney! Some teams have already been formed so get on it if you want to come! Don't be scared, it's all fun, no matter how good you think you are.

Also, don't forget about Guerrilla polo Tuesday night at midnight. Meet at the Capitol as usual and we'll go to the spot. Thursday Polo I assume will go on at 5:30, you guys seem to be good at getting the stuff or working out who gets the stuff and taking it out there. I'll most likely see you out there on my work break. Sunday Polo this week will have to be arranged by someone willing to get it out there on time! I trust you guys will work it out... and the 2 weeks following!

We also have some more shirts if you want to get some before we leave, we would definitely appreciate it, since that money will be going to pay for gas and tourney fees for us all and make y'all look good representing the atxbpsc. That's all for now.


blah blah blah

3, 2, 1 POLO!