We just got word this morning that Madison won the bid to host the North American Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships. We are really excited for this opportunity and stoked about the possibilities that hosting this tournament will hold for us. More details will follow.

Let's do this!

The Chicago NACCC Polo Tournament is upon us. In cooporation with the Chicago NACCC, Chicago Bike Polo is throwing a tournament. Registration for the event is $30.00 per person, $90.00 for a team. More...

It is not completed yet, but very soon we will have housing info, court dimensions, and the full schedule for the weekend. Just so you know, Friday night we are planning a two-on-two, winner-stays-on, friendly tournament and Monday we are planning on breakfast and a league/rules forum. Get off those other two days so we can hang out a bit more.

group

Originally uploaded by ben.hunter

Here is a great photo of friendlies with milwaukee last weekend. It is pretty awesome to have a city that is about an hour away to play polo with and i think that because of them all our skill gets better. Their is no other teams i cheer harder for at tournaments or want to beat more when i play against them. Here is too milwaukee.

I can only laugh

Originally uploaded by jonny.hunter

So, between hardcourtbikepolo.com and madbikepol.org we have had a lot of discussions about how the sport needs to move forward. It seems that things will change at a tournament level and that at a daily level bike polo will stay the same. It seems a lot is being made of our final game in T.O. between Doug and the Darlrymple's, the fact is that even though things were intense and broke down, we still played it out and as i move on from it less and less of it bothers me. I view all them favorably and i consider Doug a good friend and even though i took a nice elbow to the face from Paul, he is one of the most respectable folks i have ever seen on the court.

One of the reasons that Madbikepolo made such a concerted effort to bring three teams to Toronto was that we were saying goodbye to one of our own. Kevin, has been playing polo in Madison for 4 years and was there at the start. He has been invaluable to the sport in Madison. It is without doubt that he was our best player and a committed organizer and voice that will be missed greatly.

Ben, Kevin and I have played in 6 tournaments together now and placed on the podium at all of them. It is sad to see us probably have to separate for at least the next 6 months but it will be tough even then to get us back together for tourney play. It has been a real pleasure to play with kevin so often and i feel honored to have competed against him here in madison so often. He will be greatly missed and the void he leaves here will never be filled.

Hopefully more detail later.
1st - NYC - Doug, Paul and Zach
2nd - East Vancouver - Paul, Rory and a third
3rd - Madison/Milwaukee - Didn't play the match probably will never get a chance to because kevin and crandle are now leaving their respected cities.

Polo at Alexendria Park

Originally uploaded by jonny.hunter

So things are off to a rocking start. We rolled into the polo scene yesterday and played pick up games for about 6 hours. The courts were nuts, super slippery and nice and long. It took a bit of time but things came through well. It was really fun to kick it with all the polo folks. Lots of friends now in the scene and i feel that we are building a nice little community here.

Ben polo 1

Originally uploaded by Jonny Cycles

So Jon K. from jonny cycles has been a really good friend to Madison Bike polo. He has brazed ben's bike, bent forks for me and helped me rake the mallets and sponsored our tournaments. Plus he helps us order parts too so we can have the polo bikes we have. Be has been playing on a new bike for the last few tournaments and months because he cracked his » read more | 3 comments |

Doug over at Hardcourt Bike Polo Dot Com has been taking some photos of bikes that are used for polo. I figured i would follow up on this and take some new photos of bikes that we use here in madison. There are a couple more but for now this is what we have. Photo set here

My Bike