Bike polo fever

November is a tough time to catch the fever for bike polo. I say this because it's getting late in the season and soon play will have to wait until next spring. However, it's also a blessing, as I can spend the winter building a bike and making myself a mallet. Reading one of my favorite blogs, "How to avoid the bummer life," I saw some references to bike polo and explored further. The more I read, the more excited I got, and the more ideas came to me.

I spent much of this last summer and fall tinkering in the garage with my new windfall of bikes and parts. As I work at the local newspaper, I got a free classified ad that read "Looking for bikes, working and non-working." For the first couple weeks I must have gotten 10 calls a day, mostly from people with Huffys and Roadmasters and other assorted garbage. But every so often I found a diamond in the rough. I never spent more than $50 on a bike (a Specialized Hardrock and an old single-speed Gary Fisher KaiTai), and usually got much better deals than that. Many people just wanted me to haul their stuff away, which I did. Some of it went to the recycling company, but a lot of it went into my garage. After outfitting friends and family with a lot of the better rides I found, I was still left with a pile of bikes, frames and various parts.

One guy out in the boonies had a pile of at least 50 bike frames, some twisted and broken, some with a hint of possibility. The only one I took (for free, as he woudn't accept any money) was an old Raleigh (I forgot which model) from the seventies. I cleaned it up and put a little primer on the places where I sanded off rust. It's by no means perfect, as it has a few small dents in the 23-inch frame, but I think it will make a good asphalt bike polo steed. Most of the research I've done indicates that you don't want to bring your shiny new bike onto the field. I'll set it up as a low-gear fixie with some polo handlebars and a cool brake lever I saw online at http://www.boxwoodbicyclepolo.com/index.htm. The single lever operates both the front and rear brakes, leaving one hand free to hold the mallet. I have a single speed, but have never set up a fixed-gear ride, so I don't know how much I trust a brake-free bike.

I scouted a few places to play after work last night, and think I've come upon a good spot at Montana Tech. There is an old unused tennis court (two, actually), and it looks like the net posts will come up without too much trouble. I'd be willing to bet the school would let us use it. There I go with the "us" word. That's my other challenge: finding someone to play with. It might be a good idea to get the word out at Tech, and maybe at my LBS. We'll see where this goes, but it would be fun to get a few guys together and maybe even play some teams in Bozeman or Missoula.

I'll get more used to this blog setup and get some pictures of the bikes and the tennis courts up.