St Patricks week- Derry Bike Polo Tournament + Dublin bike festival + tourney?

Nice bike. Couldn't believe it when I saw it. Never seen a fixed gear in Derry. Didn't know what was going on. Haha

I'd be up for a pint. I'll give you a shout the next time I'm up

the 17th falls on a saturday next year so i presume the lads will organize the massacre on that weekend ie. 16th til 18th with the polo tournament happening on paddies day itself (17th). we are looking into accommodating foreign teams for the dublin part of this adventure, but we are a pretty small scene so unless if a good few of ye dont mind staying in a vacant house we 'acquired' access to from our house then don't expect too much free-accommodation-wise. sail and rail is cheap and bikes are free.

i will ask the lads and see what dates they are thinking this time round just to double check

this will be amazing : D

phat, I wll try to organize the tourney in Derry for the 14th and 15th, OR 15th and 16th where a bus would to take us to Dublin late on the night of the 15th OR 16th... Would it be a bit much having a 2 Day event in Dery? The thing is if i get a good bit of funding it might be worth going all out on a 2 day event.

I am also working on enlisting some children from the community to come do some painting on the wood borders of the courts. This is to integrate more young people in to the event and to promote cycling, while the bicycle charities ´sustrans´ and ´da´s´ cycling group for children and yourg fathers should also attend.

Loking into live music, permission to consume food and drink, market stalls and a 60´x 80´gazebo in case it rains. Might be a it ambitious though...
Anyway we can work together with this in whatever way posible and i´m hoping guinness will sponsor, for booze...

Charcoes, great news that you're putting in the effort to get this together - well, done! I'm sure there are lots of folk on here who would be happy to share their tournament organising experience if you need it? And I'm sure you'll have a few folk from London who'll be up for this once it's all confirmed.

Hey man. I am in need of costs involves for materials per court. If you could put me in touch with some of the London guys, that would be great. I reckon the court will be 60´x 80´ and built out of 4´x 6´wood sheets. reckon i will need 217´circumference of these wood sheets per court, s well as a lot of wood to join the sheets and I need figures for the funding and sponsorship application process.

Cheers dude

Hey charcoes if you need any design work done for advertising etc give us a shout. I'd be glad to help in any way I can

Ciaran, it was 'otto' who headed the courts build at the Open, and 'JonoMarshall' was in charge of the cash, so if you PM them, they might have a rough idea of the cost.

But you are best to just ring up your local timber yard or B+Q and ask them how much.
They'll give you an exact price.

Hey charcoes if you need any design work done for advertising etc give us a shout. I'd be glad to help in any way I can

yeah for sure man. send me an e-mail and i´ll give you my number. Would you like to be part of the event team in this way?

@ Dublin Kevin

thanks Kev. I´ll do that now. Will you come if it goes ahead?

yeah for sure man. send me an e-mail and i´ll give you my number. Would you like to be part of the event team in this way?

Yeah, go for it. I'll pm my number and email

Hi this is off topic but i don't know where else to post. My wife and I play polo in Canada, we just arrived in Newcastle. Want to hook up with you guys but our internet access is spotty. Can someone text us to let us know if/where polo is today or tomorrow? The # is 07570976994. Thanks!

thanks Kev. I´ll do that now. Will you come if it goes ahead?

Realistically, no. I work on Saturdays, near impossible to get time off until June 2012.

Nice, should be there polo or not.

That´s a pity Kev. It would be cool to see you here

@coventry eagle- Nice one man. You guys can stay at my house anyways. I can accomodate at least 10 people, if not more. So you´d be coming for Dublin tourney then?

Once you have dates, confirmed, we'll make it a 'Tourney' and put the dates in the title.

Not trying to be a dick, just keeping things tidy.

The Dublin tourney is confirmed. It happens every year... I thnik it´s on the 17th and 18th. i guess you want us to start another thread for the dublin event of something

Sounds good. I'd say a few people from Belfast would be interested in this

Are their many polo players in Derry?

Hey man. I will be in Belfast one weekend soon for music related stuff but if you can gather a few polo people together I can bring my polo bike and have a day of polo with you guys... bike polo is played on low gi freewheel bikes these days. something as close to a 1 to 1 gearing ratio is best. a group full of fixed wheels usually results in lots more crashes than usual

Given northern ireland is currently part of the UK, is it possible to get there without a passport? I've got a driver's license for ID...

What a prefect excuse to finally go to Ireland, so in

there's no passport control between ireland and the UK.
but ryanair insists on a passport.

Given northern ireland is currently part of the UK, is it possible to get there without a passport? I've got a driver's license for ID...

you can just use a drivers licence or another form of picture id issued by the government, even a slightly out of date passport got ciaran through for the LO this year

in

Having been talking to the lads in Dublin we are considering the option of running the tounament starting early Friday morning in Derry, and carry on to Dublin, giving each team 4-6 games. The tournament would then run in to a single elimination final finishing in Dublin on Friday night...

Therefore, also playing with the idea of using a series of basketball courts instead of building a court. This is due to the limit of time, for those working during the week, and the fact that the Dublin events start Friday night at 9p.m. Also, If the option of taking a long weekend off work/ college is given I believe more people will come= more polo.

This would result in using most of the funding for better prizes, to play for the bus to Dublin and back to Derry, and to buy some food/ drinks and materials...

Ciaran, dont mean to shoot your idea down, I think looking for funding off the City of Culture thing isnt a bad thought for the future development of polo, but maybe you might want to put the horse before the cart?
AFAIK there is no polo at all in Derry now, or even in the north (unless I'm wrong?), it might be worth pushing it a bit where you are, with leaflets in bike shops, cafes, bars, student hangouts, any other type of bike areas like MTB trails or BMX / skate parks, so you can get a semi-regular game going with locals, on any existing facility you might have - rather than relying on Dubliners a five-hour bus journey away.
This might also open up opportunities for you to get some planning & practical help further on down the road, rather than lifting the load entirely on your own.

I thought there was a team from Derry who were going to go to the UK Champs?

There was a team from derry made up of me and two lads from Dublin. Kev, like I said nobody here plays bike polo, barely anybody cycles. There were 4 of us playing bike polo for a time but that has dwindled... Last I heard, there was polo in Belfast and there are 3 other guys I play polo with here the odd time...

People laugh at cycling here...

If I were you, I'd live somewhere else.

There was a team from derry made up of me and two lads from Dublin. Kev, like I said nobody here plays bike polo, barely anybody cycles. I tried to start bike polo here but it's not happening. People laugh at cycling here... Last I heard, there was polo in Belfast and there are 2 other guys I play polo with here the odd time... Em...I don't know...Maybe this is too aspirational. Is that what you're trying to say?

I think you would call that team a Dublin team with one guy from Derry, rather than the other way around!
I don't want to come across as excessively negative, this is all meant in a spirit of advice not criticism, but I think organising a polo tournament in a city that has zero history of it, or much of a cycling "culture", might be difficult for you to achieve on your own.
Any tournament I've seen organised has a few people behind it to help with organisation, marketing, sponsorship, temp court building, accomodating visiting players, and so on. If you are planning on organising a Derry tourney, then it sounds like you would be doing all this yourself, which sounds like a massive amount of work for one person.

In the case of John H's mini ABC tournament, he didnt have to do a huge amount of work, but that's because he already had a two-court location with floodlights instantly available, and a pool of seventy regular players in the one location who dont have to travel to participate.

To me, it seems players from England tend to make the effort to travel to tournaments on the continent, because they know there will be other teams from across Europe there, and the level of play will be quite competitive. Ireland's (and Derry's) relatively isolated location as an island instantly ups the cost for a travelling team, and the city doesnt have any strong native contingent to act as a draw. I think even Dublin would struggle with this.

If Derry has nothing to speak of like a critical mass, casual / social rides, a shop like Rothar, a concrete BMX park, etc then I think something like that generally tends to come first to get people more into more fun / DIY aspects of bikes, and might be worth building towards, rather than a full polo tournament on its own.
Maybe a Derry Bicycle Week with a few different events?
I just think that something like that might expand your pool of potential future players in the city, rather than parachuting people from Dublin in for a day, and then disappearing.

Maybe I'm completely wrong, I'm open to counter arguments.
I'm just thinking of how it got off the ground in Dublin.

Seal might be right, time for a move, come to London! Irishane is leaving, so there is an opening now for another Irish polo person.
You'd have to change your username to DerryCiaran though.