Polo Rules

Off to cut lengths of chain into protectors for profit.

I can bring down some freewheel removal tools if you need them for the mechanics area.

my team mates run gears! will they have to convert to ss in the next three days considering they will be at work all up until friday with their bikes packed in the car on wednesday night??? Its extremely short notice and as much as i agree with this rule it just seems that perhaps a better solution 'just for this tournament' would be to make shin pads a requirement regardless of how many folk will moan about it. Of course we'll try and comply but thats a big setback for some of us!

A swim?

Swing?

swig?

Well, it's a bit early, but sure. Thanks.

Clemp, safety is paramount. Shin guards aren't the answer, as many other parts of the body could be cut, and in any case asking everyone to get extra equipment for a couple of players with gears is the wrong approach. I'm sure you can find creative solutions to replace or cover them

my team mates run gears! will they have to convert to ss in the next three days considering they will be at work all up until friday with their bikes packed in the car on wednesday night??? Its extremely short notice and as much as i agree with this rule it just seems that perhaps a better solution 'just for this tournament' would be to make shin pads a requirement regardless of how many folk will moan about it. Of course we'll try and comply but thats a big setback for some of us!

Hey Clemp!

I think asking every player (180 people) to buy shin pads versus a few players to single speed their bikes seems unfairly weighted but i agree that it is short notice. However, does your team mate have a cassette or a freewheel? If it's a cassette then its really straight forward and if you can get to a bike shop at home, let your host or someone in London know you need some help when you get here. You would just need to remove the unused cogs in the cassette and replace them with spacers. Are you guys playing the Friday or the Saturday group? Let me know of the set up on the bikes and I will do what I can to help!

Cheers, Nik

You could fit plastic discs between the unused sprockets, but do they really need to change gear on court?

so no more riding to polo on one gear and playing on another?

That was a dying luxury anyway...

so no more riding to polo on one gear and playing on another?

Feel free to, just bring a free wheel tool, or chain with a quick link, or a second wheel.

Any chance the mods could copy the spare cog posts to a separate thread? I suspect this will be an ongoing discussion and probably doesn't sit best in the various LO threads.

i totally agree with you john H. Its not going to affect me but im just worried that my team mates wont have time to sort it out. i guess i posted in a huff because of the short notice. We dont really check the london forum much and had chris who came up to play with us yesterday not suggested i check here for the team confirmation then we wouldnt have even seen that this was a new rule.

so no more riding to polo on one gear and playing on another?

Do you even spin bro?

I dont actually do that hehe, just asking cos I saw a number of people that do.

I reckon an effective and "legal" guard could be made from offcuts of old chain, 8 links for a 17t, add a half link for 18t. The split links would need to be the kind with clips on though as you won't be able to bend the chain or push it together. Less easy for derailleur set ups though. Hub gears back on trend 2014?

you wouldn't need to put chain on all of the sprockets on the cassette, just every other one.

Is there going to be a mechanical stall, can they stock a bunch of these:
http://bit.ly/1an8ZCs

This is going to be a major pain for anyone with a cassette or freewheel block. It's dead easy to say you can just go single speed, but I will need to take a hacksaw to my cassette to achieve the correct gear (I run a 28t). Luckily I know how to do this, and probably have the parts. It could take a number of hours in any case! I expect I'm in the minority though, most will need to throw money at a bike shop and hope they are good at improvisation.

I don't think a 9 speed block presents the same hazard as a single, spare cog. Is that what caused the injury? I also don't think it will be possible to put a spare piece of chain on adjacent cogs, as this will foul on the drive chain.

Because there have been so many injuries due to exposed cogs in the decades of hardcourt bike polo, it is important to ban them NOW!

Guys, this is the result of an injury in the recent NAH Champs. It happened because of an exposed cog....

holy shit. nearly boked in my mouth.

Because there have been so many injuries due to exposed cogs in the decades of hardcourt bike polo, it is important to ban them NOW!

That's as may be, but one injury like that is already one to many. I'm not going to play in, or ref, a game where someone has an exposed cog/freewheel.

See Ben's picture.