Pimp My Mallet

The Guardian suggests bike polo as a sport to try this summer. Bit loose on the facts/details and no mention of the upcoming European Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships but nevermind.

Then there’s the Bicycle Film Festival polo tournament in London. And maybe more polo at Bike Blenheim Palace alongside the Brompton World Championship but I’ve only just read that on their website so what actually happens is anyone’s guess.

In the meantime come and play polo, 7pm Wednesdays in Marston (click for map).

Helmets ARE required for this tournament! We need to register between 6 and 8 on the Friday evening in East London. This will be at the retro geek paradise that is Tour de Ville bike shop and there will be a BBQ going on. The tournament is here and the itinerary here

The courts will be 20m x 30m (bigger than the Cowley Marsh court)

Also note the following rules:

- No intentional T-bone’ or charging

- No overly aggressive behavior such as unnecessary elbowing, grabbing, pushing, punching with hands, pushing or kicking with feet, and headbutting

“Like” contact that is allowed:
- Non-aggressive Body to body, mallet to mallet, and bike to bike. Apart from the fouls listed above.
- Contact is only permitted within the play of the ball. Contact away from the play of the ball can result in a penalty.

We’ve registered 2 teams for this tournament. Info from the organisers:

“Ok, we’re going to have to close registration at 21. We’re pretty stoked that we’ve got that many teams coming up. It’s going to be great.

Registration will start at 10:30 AM on Saturday 11th. Play will start at 12:00 PM (NOON!) promptly.

The play will be Double Elimination. After registration we will randomly place all team names into the tournament brackets. Games will be FIRST TO FIVE or TIME OUT AT TEN MINUTES whichever is first. If the score is tied at ten minutes we will go to SUDDEN DEATH with the next goal scored winning the match. To keep turn around time as low as possible we will let teams know a few games in advance as to when they are playing next so teams can be ready to jump on as soon as the previous game finishes.

Before play we will also have a quick run through of a few rules (just to clear up any regional variations such as goal height limits etc etc) and then get straight in”