Sunday Bike Polo grows in popularity

Sunday, November 1, 2009
Coolavin Park
NoC Sports Desk

Sunday turned into a crowded day of bike polo at Coolavin. Many of the familiar faces showed up for the late afternoon weekly pick-up games—Morrow, Flowers, Brooks, Tedder, Simpson, Texas Phenom Lopez, Hord. And quite a few recent additions pedaled up as well: Stanton, Wood, Katie Jo, and Rozzi, among others.

But what had some grizzled veterans taking notice were the increasing numbers of new players taking up mallets and going foot-down for the first time. Pickup games that earlier in the summer drew eight or ten participants have morphed—on this glorious fall Sunday afternoon, at least—into a full scale Bike Polo happening. This was a far cry from just a year ago, when players gathered and played on the rooted Woodland Park lawn, or even six months ago, before the converted tennis courts at Coolavin had been parceled into two bike polo courts. Indeed, an unsuspecting spectator coming upon the bike pit that separates Courts 1 and 2—where bikes, mallets, balls and all manner of human shapes and gesticulations all but spilled out onto game action—might have mistook the gregarious crowd for a mob of bikers up to no good, which of course might not be all that far from the truth.

Today's rookies are of course tomorrow's tournament MVPs, and one couldn't help but notice the teaching going on: Simpson drawing up strategy with his bike mallet to a throng of eager faces in the bike pit, Morrow informing about “tournament” rules after a 15 foot ball-jointed goal by Wood, and Brooks instilling court awareness by sending giant forearm shivers, willy-nilly, at any number of unsuspecting rookies who had already gone foot-down and found themselves trapped helplessly against the court walls.

While the influx of players seems only to have increased the joy experienced by everyone involved with the sport —both during play on the court and in conversations off the court—the increase has also made for longer waits between games. As one long-time player remarked casually, “Games go two, three deep now.” What was once a one-game wait to get your mallet back into play now takes three, four games.

This is, of course, not a problem at the moment, nor might it ever be. Bike polo players—like the larger bike community, it seems—are notoriously giving and happy to have more people share in the game. But with more players arriving, it may now be time for Court 2, which sits to the north of Court 1 across the bike pit, to finally get retrofitted for bike polo action.

A little context. This past summer before the Bluegrass State Games Bike Polo Tournament, most of the players then associated with Lexington bike polo donated their time to construct a lumber court—essentially, a 2x6 treated piece of lumber that frames the court and ensures the ball will not get caught in the fence that encloses both courts. (The frame is taller on the bike pit side.) The lumber-ed in section acts as Court 1, and it has always (since summer, at least) sufficed for play. Sufficed wonderfully, actually.

But Court 2, which sits on the north end of the bike pit, has yet to be finished. Currently, it sits as a dumping grounds for pets, a unicycle stage for when Lay brings his unicycle, and as an occasional practice space on which players may warm up. But mostly, it sits unused.

Lexington bike polo has already put in their sweat equity to fix up one court. With a potential influx of new players to the park, might the city or community residents offer the meager support and help necessary to fix up Court 2?