Day of Polo!

Your court misses you! Come out on Thursday and play! 5:30 is the usual time, if you get there first, come by my house and pick up the stuff! The weather looks to be nice and slightly warm. I may be at the courts some time mid-day just messing around if anyone wants to join me.

Tuesday

The weather is looking pretty crappy, I'm not going to go out tonight at midnight, and not sure about the south side pick up, but I would venture to say that may get rained out as well. Good day to watch some polo videos!

2009LAST. SUNDAY MORNING BIKE POLO from ARAKID on Vimeo.

CHCH Bike Polo - Helmet Cam from Polo Camo on Vimeo.

This weekend

Ok, I know I said I would be in town to play on Saturday if anyone wanted to meet up, well I lied, I'm not going to be back until Sunday morning. So, if you were getting excited, sorry, I'll be with my family.

Sunday Polo at 2:00 p.m. till whenever you all get tired!


MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL!
(IF YOU CELEBRATE THIS DAY)

...

This week's polo Info:

Tuesday

I understand Gabe is out of town for the holidays, but if you want to get your polo on at the South Side courts I'll bet there will be several peeps headed out there at 5:30 p.m.

If you can't make it to this and don't mind staying up late, I'll be out at the Capitol at Midnight, to meet anyone wanting to go hit the ball around. The last 3 weeks, no one has shown up, so someone come out and play with me. We can play kenball if nothing else... what's kenball you ask... well come find out!

Thursday

There won't be any polo on Thursday, unless you can manage to scrounge up some of the folks, but don't expect anyone to be at Eastwoods! Go spend time with your family and friends!

Saturday

This Saturday if anyone would like to meet up for some informal pick up or kenball, let me know. I'll most likely be back in town that afternoon and would like to meet up with anyone willing to play.

Sunday

Sunday will be a regular polo day. We'll have a guest from Madison visiting us, Johnny Hunter, so come out and let's show him a good time. 2:00 p.m. if not sooner is the time, I'll most likely be out there before 2 if the weather is nice!

that's all for now!

3,2,1 Polo!

Sunday Sunday FUNDAY!!!

Hey it's Sunday, and it's almost that...

2:00 p.m. @ Eastwoods Park

...

fixi3 polo en guadalajara from e2pora on Vimeo.

Too many ideas, so little time to post....

Hey, to all who have gone to the South Side pick up on Tuesday...

I was wondering if this would be a good opportunity for us to have an actual Beginners day? Some cities do this when the level of competition gets too high for those just learning. I know we're not all that good yet, but it can be a daunting task to jump in a game with skilled players. If we market this day as a beginners day, I'll bet we can get a bunch more people to come out regularly.

What do you all think?

Not saying that only beginners can go to this, but they would have priority over people like myself or Miguel when the mallets are being tossed. I'll try and find out how many clubs across the country have beginners day.

Comment below to have a say!

South Central Region on .ca

Hey everyone! (or those who frequent The League of Bike Polo website)

Get on there and join the group for the South Central Region! We are officially a Region now. I am waiting to hear back from a few of the clubs to get their representatives, and once I have them all, I'll post up the info on the South Central Region site, so everyone knows who to contact in what area. From there, the club reps will then choose 3 regional reps to do the dirty deeds with the NAHBP peeps. This is exciting y'all, and if you don't think so, you are not taking bike polo seriously enough!


As you can see, I'm the only member so far! I also hope you can see we've added Mexico to our group in the South Central! Yeah, there is one club in Mexico, hopefully we'll see them before too long!


p.s. it seems .ca has officially switched over to a .com, so all my references to .ca, I'm really referring to leagueofbikepolo.com, formerly known as bikepolo.ca

STL:

For those who were going to STL:

Hey everyone who has "signed-up" for the lock-in on .ca,

After much consideration, some amount of hand-wringing, and many failed attempts to get a title sponsor to pay the rental fee for 23 hours at the Skatium, StL bike polo has finally arrived at a formula that we think is going to make this event a success. Due to space/capacity issues, food budgets, fair access to the one court in the place, etc. We have decided to limit entry to this event to 80 persons, and to charge 20 dollars per. This will include 4 meals, snacks, beer, water, and coffee.

The show will go more-or-less as follows: All games all day and night will be played to 10 minutes. We have a scoreboard with a time clock and a buzzer. 4/5ths of these will be straight pick-up. Once an hour, a called game will be had. These will be distributed by lottery, which means if you already know who your three are, and which three you want to play, that's are 6 chances for that game to be had sometime during the event.
Weather averages for St Louis for that time of year are a high of 37 and a low of 21, it is usually clear and dry the third weekend of January. I say this for two reasons: 1. To let all the yahoos from south of here who plan on coming know to dress warm, and 2. To say that if you feel that you aren't getting enough polo, our regular Sunday pick up court is 3 miles up the road from the Skatium.

To reserve your spot, please paypal us 20 dollars via " Lucky at slathaus.com " Careful records will be kept and full refunds will be given to people whose availability changes between now and January 16th. This is the paypal account that I conduct St. Cago Polo Works business through, if that helps anyone get over sending money to a near stranger. Full disclosure of all funds taken in and how they were spent will be available after the event.

A block of 20 tickets have been reserved for Saturday night's Blues vs Rangers NHL game. These tickets will be 39 dollars each. We will be traveling by city bus, which is 2.25 each way and happens to go door to door from the Skatium to the Scottrade Center. If you are interested in attending the hockey game, make a note of it in your reservation and, if you are able, send that 39 dollar ticket price at the same time.

I'll do my damndest to keep the tallies updated on the Tournament thread, so you can all feel that deadline and make your travel plans.

Thanks in advance for all your trust, we're looking forward to filling your bellies, wetting your throats, and keeping you up all night playing polo indoors in the dead of winter. -Lucky and all of StL Bike Polo

Today!! Lot's of polo happening..

Today is Tuesday!

South Side courts today at 5 p.m.

Midnight at the Capitol

Australian polo!

More COMO stuff....

... those of you in Como remember the girl running around with all those big cameras, well she has published her stuff to the web...

Mito Habe-Evans - Harshbarge.com

check it out! The studio shots of those COMO guys are pretty cool, that's kind of what I was talking about here...

Also, check out another Mito did on the ComoPolo crew!

Shifting gears - Bike Polo

Sunday Pics!

What a great day for POLO!!!

It's Beautiful outside, I'll be up at the courts soon!

3,2,1, Polo!

Some ideas to ponder....,

I don't know how well most of you really know me, but when I'm not at work, already playing polo, or spending time with my family, I pretty much think of nothing but bike polo, in general, Austin bike polo more specifically, and things we can do, to not only grow, but to have fun and get our sport and our ideas out there. Of the things I've been thinking of lately, here are the ones I've actually decided to pursue!

I know I've already mentioned this one, but I want to get a group photo of all of us. I know not everyone will be in it, but if we can get almost everyone that comes out regularly, I would be so happy. This is important and I'll explain in a sec....

Another thing I want to do, involving pictures, is to create a player bio type of thing for the blog. I want to get a few questions together related to why you come and play polo, and a picture of everyone individually to post up on the blog. I think some of you would also like to see what other people have to say, and the general public will enjoy it too. If you have any ideas on this, talk to me...

Besides getting more and more people to come out and play polo, I want to take what we have to the next level. I would like to get people to start organizing into semi-permanent teams for a season of league play. We should try out a organized league. This will give everyone a chance to play with a team for more than one or two pick up games, which is a major part of polo, team work. It will also allow the teams willing to travel to tournaments to have a chance to get some practice as a team. It will most likely work something like this: every team will play every other team. Each league match will be a 2 out of 3 game match. So, you will have to play each team at least 2 times, essentially, but possibly 3 times. Then each score will be recorded and the winner at the end of the season will get a prize or something fun and exciting. More to come on this...

Now, finally... not that it's completely official, I feel like our little "Austin Texas Bike Polo Social Club" is about to reach a one year anniversary!! Even though Mason was getting people to come out to play polo before this, January 25, 2009 was the first official day Nick Ganci and I got polo going after Mason's dropping off. So, in 2010, Sunday, January 24 is the day I would like to celebrate the creation of the ATXBPSC. I want to do something extra special. A big party with a keg and food, fireworks, and everything else crazy that comes to mind, should be in order. If you have any other ideas let me know... Oh this is why a group picture is important, it's been a year... now, if we can get another group picture on January 24th and have everyone, including Mason, Allen, Chris, Nic and Les, if he can get off work, then we will have a true atxbpsc photo to document or progress! dorky, maybe, but so much fun!

Oh oh, oh, and let's see if we can't find a new bigger court, or something more permanent for some walls for our current court... think about it, nothing rushing any of this.

Sunday at Eastwoods Park at 2:00 p.m. is when I'll be out there. As I've told many, I sit out there alone for at least an hour, so if you have nothing going on, come out and let's play!

Thursday!

So, today, I assume someone will come by and pick up the cones and the extra mallet or two I have laying around, along with a ball or two, I also have laying around, to start polo at or around 5:30. I'm not going to spend time calling you all to figure out who that person is, I know you all will get it. I always try to spend a little extra time away from work on Thursdays, on my break, to come play, and I'm hoping today is no different, its certainly a beautiful day so far.

For Sunday, let's get as many poloers out to the courts as possible to take a group picture for the holidays. I think that would be nice, plus it will be like a pre-party to the Holiday party Jasmine is hosting at her place on Monday, the 14th. If you can't make it out, don't worry, I'm fairly proficient at photoshop and can just add you in at a later time, to the picture, not the party! Maybe we can have a cookout or something similar on Sunday to encourage you fools to come out. Plus, I won't get to see you all on Monday, as I will be working, so it will give me a chance to party too! Four LOKOS for everyone!!!! j/k

Is it Midnight yet...?

Hey everyone, so it's Tuesday, which means a polo day!!! YAY!

Word is, that once we find a suitable south court, some of the South siders will be doing a Tuesday afternoon polo session, much like Thursday, somewhere closer to them. As of now, it's still in the works, but keep an eye on the blog or on Facebook for info.

Tuesday Midnight Guerrilla polo is still happening like always, so come out at midnight if you don't have anything going on or don't have to get up early on Wednesday morning. It's sure to be fun. Now if it's raining, give me a call or check the blog just before midnight and I'll update whether or not I'm coming out, not that it always means it's off... just means I pussed out, ha!

Thursday Bike Polo Session...

...and Sunday

This just out....

NEW ORLEANS HARDCOURT BIKE POLO TOURNAMENT FINAL STANDINGS

Double Elim Standings

1 - Hymen, I'm Back! - Austin - Rob, Miguel, Charlie
2 - Big Red - Ft. Lauderdale - Jared, Seth, Christian
3 - Como Polio - Columbia - Pete, Charlie, Vince
4 - Lonesome Beards - New Orleans/Baton Rouge - Travis, Mikey, Cien
5 - Pandzig - Philadelphia/New Orleans - Cris, Peter, Jeff
6 - Team Dan - Austin/? - Casey, Dan, Israel
7 - A.B. Cockblockz - Pensacola - Ryan, Jeremy, A.B.
8 - Bot 9 NS - New Orleans/Mobile - Frazer, Jace, Paul
9 - Captain Bunz - New Orleans/Calgary - Trevor, Lando, Will
10 - Boone's Farm Bandits - New Orleans - Bill, Sami, Gabe
11 - Coonass Smash - Baton Rouge - Andy, Mark, Dustin
12 - Double Fisted Chesty - ? - Christopher, Laura, Sean
13 - Boner Jamz '03 - Ft. Lauderdale/? - Julia, Kelly, Sam
14 - Jacques Straps - ? - Simon, Nick, Jacques
15 - Del Taco - Atlanta - Jake, Bill, Ray
16 - Crighton Crackheads - Mobile - Drew, Brandon, Todd
17 - Bike on Bike Crime - Austin - Annie, Jasmine, Mo
18 - Dip Boyz - ? - David, Jimmy, Ben
19 - The Originals - Ann, Angel, Tiffany

Blog Bombs!

Sorry about the multiple posts people, but I have this info fresh on my mind....
The Holiday Party date has been officially CHANGED to Monday Dec 14th! It will be at Jasmine's house. Bring a dish and some drinks for you. The gift exchange will be a casual affair, in order to participate please make/bake/or find a thrift store treasure to trade with a friend. we dont expect anyone to break the bank for a gift so keep 'em simple, sillies!

get the details at polo, on facebook, email, or call me.

k. bye now.
-mo

Bike Polo Spring Break and SouthEastSide Polo Invitational Tournament

Pennsacola, FL! Beautiful powdery white sands beaches, glittering gulf coast waters, roller hockey court on the beach, beach rental property that sleeps up to like 16-20 people (which means hella deals, estimated $100-$200 for the whole week!)

The Spring Break portion of this event (Monday Feb 22- Friday Feb 26)is a week of debauchery, polo pick-up, partying, probably an alleycat or something, goldsprints maybe...mostly it is just a break from the "cold" and the "dark" (for all the northerners), and a week of mixing it up and meeting polo peeps from other places. The tournament portion happens at the end of the week, Saturday Feb 27-Sunday 28th.

I put up a post on leagueofbikepolo.com on the SESPI/Spring Break thread calling on other ciies to bunk up with us and share a beach house. I need to know who is thinking about this. How seriously are you thinking about it? When are you interested and willing to head out there? We should drive- we could drive to NOLA, hang out and play and then carpool with them the rest of the way to break up the drive if need be. The airport situation just really doesnt make any sense for us, we would have to fly to some point around P-Cola, then drive so we might as well drive.

Now that I am thinking about this, I am going to talk to NOLA, BR, Mobile and see who is going and who wants to carpool and share housing. ATX, holler at me!
mo.grady@gmail.com
you should have my number, if not, get it at pick-up!
xoxo,
Mo

...

Polo Friendlies in January?!?

Who wants to go to Dallas in January and play some polo with those guys/gals, and some from OK city, Tulsa, and possibly Amarillo?

click here to follow the discussion!

Holiday Party

Hello Polo guys and gals. Sunday was a good time back at the courts, nice to see some new faces and play with the ATX crew again. We had a lovely little farewell potluck for our beloved baby Charlie. Annie, Jasmine and I were talking about the upcoming holiday and thought it would be nice for all of us to get together and have a social outing off the courts. We were thinking of organizing a holiday party and gift exchange at jasmine;s humble abode. The [possibly tentative] date we thought of was Monday Dec 21. This will be a potluck BYObeverage and dish. Also, bring a gift (make, bake, or thrift store treasures only!)for a gift exchange.
Post up responses scheduling concerns, ideas, etc. up here so we can iron out the details and get this in motion.

Hope everyone is ready for December and keep coming out for polo!
x's and o's,
mo

Damn, I like this video!

This seems to capture the true feeling of pick-up for me. If this song could play the whole time on Sunday, I would be a happy man... enjoy!

Boston Bike Polo from Boston Bike Polo on Vimeo.

Bike Polo at the Pit!!

Yep you heard right, when Mo, Charlie and I were traveling across the East coast, we had to stop by the pit. Doug D was there to take some pics and play, and man let me tell you, the play is way different in New York City... they are all so talented. Loved watching and playing the little bit I did. Here is the link to the pics he posted, if you haven't been to Doug's website then you don't take this game serious enough... Hardcourtbikepolo.com, come one, tell me you haven't run a search and seen that shit.... if you haven't, then check it out now!!!

We actually met up with 2 guys from Albany and 1 guy from DC came up to play with us at the pit. This was an awesome day! Rode around Brooklyn, played in two different locations, ate some cheap ass dumplings in China town, met a lot of really good polo players and got schooled by all of 'em! I loved it!

Sunday Polo

Come out to Eastwoods Park at or around 2 pm! It's gonna be a good one! Also, click the image above to check out some cool photos, many polo related!

Mallets

One of the good things about going up to the Columbia Midwestern's was the chance to get hold of one of these capped mallet heads from St. Cago Polo Works, which is Lucky of St. Louis. At the tournament, he had a box full of the 3 different mallet heads he made, the double capped, the single capped, and the small diameter double capped. I couldn't resist. So, I bought one of each. After the tournament, I was compelled to buy another single capped, which Israel has already bought off me. After playing with the single capped at the New Orleans Tournament, I am convinced of it's abilities. It's magical! Not really, but it's fun to play with...

Click the image above to read about it at Urban Velo and check out bikepolo.ca (leagueofbikepolo.com) to order some from Lucky, if you're interested. Otherwise, I've got some yellow and blue head materials to make more than a few mallets. Let me know at polo. Unfortunately we didn't pick up any ski poles when we were up north, but there may be some in the used sporting equipment section at some Goodwills and other thrift stores. Goodluck!

what happened to .ca...?

from the horses mouth...

"Hello Poloverse,

For the last few days, you may have noticed that the URL bikepolo.ca has not been working. We are currently up and running and http://www.leagueofbikepolo.com, it's unclear right now if it's the final home. Sorry for any confusion the last few days...

But on to more exciting news...

1) European Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships will be taking place in Geneva, Switzerland... dates TBD. Check out their plans here:
http://www.leagueofbikepolo.com/bid/ehbpc2010

2) The North American Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships will be taking place in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Check out their plans here:
http://www.leagueofbikepolo.com/bid/nahbpc2010/madison. Boston also put together a great bid for this tournament, which will hopefully become the groundwork for some other awesome tournament.

3) Berlin is preparing to host the World Championships. See their plans here: http://www.leagueofbikepolo.com/bid/whbpc2010/berlin

Dates have been proposed for all these events but i'm not sure if any of them are final, i'm guessing they'll be finalized before the new year.

Between now and these tournaments, the League of Bike Polo will be getting a pretty significant overhaul, including better design, lots of new features for club and team listings, and a better home page suited to a broader audience.

See you at the court."

Yay! Looks like Madison is the spot to be next year for the Nationals... and if one feels compelled, Berlin is the spot for the Worlds next year!

Where's the Hymen?

Team "Hymen, I'm home" in Como and "Hymen, I'm back" in Nola

Team "Tough Shits" in Como and Team "Bike on Bike crime" in Nola
go atx ladies!!!

Team Dan, guess who picked that name...
...hint, it wasn't Dan


weez got teams yo!

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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!
---------------------------------------------------------------------

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