"We're going to DC, we're going to DC!" Those were the words sung by Nan, high up on Ben's shoulders, at 9pm on Friday night. The catering gig was finished, and we were about to get in the volvo 240 with 300,000 miles on it, loaded down with a full trunk and five bikes on a bike rack made for three.

As General Manager, Nan was allowed to choose our team name. I wanted something to represent my disdain for DC and my foreigner status, so i proposed The Burning of Washington. But Nan wouldn't have any of it, and when presented with the option of naming us after her favourite train engine, Gordon, she jumped. So we became "Gordon is the Biggest and the Fastest and the Strongest..."

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Day 1

Things went really well (fast interstate sailing, beautiful sunrise) until we got to West Virginia. Then in the space of 20 minutes, our would-be-head coach and friend from NYC called to cancel, and the muffler fell off. Nan was instantly promoted from GM to head coach, which basically meant hanging out with the local kids on the swing set, and eating lots of candy.

I learned only recently that my grandfather played a lot of polo in Ireland. Yesterday i had the chance to ask him more about it, and i recorded it. So here he is talking about playing hardcourt polo on the Courthouse Square in Galway in the 1930s--against his father's wishes--and the inspiration and equipment they got from the awesome Gaelic sport, hurling.

So awesome to see fresh faces, new blood, and an all women's team that kicks ass. Some random things:

1) Tournaments: Saturday October 27 in Milwaukee, and uh, "save the date": June 16-18 2008 at the cycle messenger world championships in toronto, and Labor Day weekend 2008 at the NACCC in Chicago.

2) Bikes: we need some 275mm spokes to fix up some wheels. anyone got quick access to em? It's nice that we all share bikes, but five people have each put in about $150 towards wheels and generously lend their crap out when they're not on the court--one person for an entire year while he's training in high altitude. Jonny has put in countless hours of labour. others have put in a lot of time fixing flats and broken spokes or building their own bikes. please help with $ or labour where you can.

Just got back from 7 hours of polo here at Reynold's field. Chicago was a no-show but Milwaukee represented with six of their best. the host city served up grilled quesadillas, 16 avocados worth of guacamole, 20lbs of tomatoes worth of salsa, and some crazy currant/blackberry pie, and there were copious 12 packs of cheap wisconsin beer.

We played mostly on grass, with a little hardcourt thrown in on the nearby thunderdome. Almost all games were mixed MKE/MSN, but near the end we threw in an intercity matchup with Jake Eric and Joe from Milwaukee vs Neil Ben and I--four out of six of the players who squared off in the finals in Chicago back in May. In my opinion MKE totally dominated in ball possession and scoring opportunities, but somehow Madison ended up winning the match 1-3, 3-2, 3-2.