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clean check?
le tour de france rider Kevin Reza picks up my helmet cam - YouTube

Also - forgot to apologize to Emmet for ruining his exquisite facial features with my mallet. Goal reffing is a dangerous role...

I had to leave on friday morning for work reasons, back to paris, so here is my early feedback on the tourney:

The Good:

• Court surface was amazing (when dry)
  
• Court sizes were good.
  
• The main area around the courts A/B was nice to hang out, and beautiful to look at with ancient fortifications and greenery
  
• The city is amazing
  
• The atmosphere was great, so nice to see teams from all over europe, all serous about the game
  
  

The not so good:

• During the wildcard, under heavy rain, courts were really slippery, braking was near-impossible
  
• THE FENCES: not having put boards on top of the metal fences was unacceptable, as it made the courts really dangerous. I even fell at full speed whilst tapping out, as my mallet shaft got stuck between gaps!!
  
• The schedule: do bike polo players have no jobs or what? Why do tourneys end on saturdays now? To party?? This is a sport not a fucking party! Who can take 5 days off just for this? The tourney should have started on fri, with the wildcard on thu. Even better: it should all be concentrated on 2 days, with more courts.
  
• The red bull "sponsorship": I don't mind a massive red bull tent, trucks, logos everywhere... but I hope they paid some money to be present, because they were charging 3€ per can.
  
• The reffing: still really uneven.. with really dangerous moves uncalled.
  
• No on-site repair booth.
  
  

voila!

Slippery court? No Alcohol? The standard is falling...

Seriously though, can someone post the results with the names of the players in each team? Hard to understand without the regulars like BAD Polo and Rotten Apples...

Padova Polorama was awesome. The two existing courts are great, the city is beautiful... now let's qualify.

Other thing: we're seeing more and more players who, when gently brushed with a shoulder and tapping down, who raise their arms in anger and look at the ref calling for a penalty. AND IT WORKS! Fuck football.

Sorry to state the obvious but a tourney under the new rules might be somewhat safer but oh god is it slow and boring. Our chances of ever becoming a proper spectator sport, enteŕtaining and of any interest to the media are slimming down. We're doing the pre-qualifications for the euros in strasbourg this weekend and mayeut is reffing, enforcing a strict no contact policy, and games are slow, constantly interrupted, with little engagement from even good players. Really not a big fan I must say. The 2 sec bj rule is also almost impossible to properly enforce. No high mallet is of course as idiotic as it's always been, as NO ONE ever got hurt by a high mallet coming down.

I'm worried.

I think the 'muricans can keep their absurd healthcare system and their retarded approach to face cages...

Nice shot to illustrate modern canadian bike polo...

We played a small tourney in Nantes this weekend with the NAH ruleset (we had it printed and with a nice rigid cover - and even I read it!).

Quality of reffing was pretty good, esp when Hugo was doing it.

My personal opinion is:

• at this stage, with the new rules not yet understood/respected, it creates a lot of whistling and game interruptions, which makes for a less interesting sport to watch. Maybe with time this won't happen so often, but right now it interfered too much with the flow

• the high sticking rule is total bullshit. I've said it before and I'll say it again, no-one ever got hurt a player lifting his mallet to catch the occasional flying ball. Absolute waste of time. Hard reverse backshots are way more dangerous, I'll keep my face cage for that, thanks.

• the interference rule works and is easy to understand

• hacking was kinda fun, I miss it.

• hooking has to be kept part of polo. It adds excitement to the game : one of my favorite things to see is when a player does a fast breakaway, thinks he can have a shot on an open goal or on a lone goalie, and just as he is about to shoot, SNAP a defender rushing from behind hooks his mallet and changes the course of the game. Why on earth would we want to ban this??

• No arm extension, arms next to the body : why not, but short players can circumvent this by lifting the forearm or shoulders of opponents with their shoulders, just as we ride next to them and are way below by nature. Woods took a pretty nasty fall today, as I did exactly that to him. I felt bad, but it wasn't called.

• Interfering with goalie: not clear if bike to bike contact counts as interference? Woods did the classic "front wheel opener" to me, by forcing his front wheel against mine and leaving a small gap for his teammate to score between my bike and the post. The goal wasn't counted, I was half happy it didn't count, half unhappy as I always thought it was a clever offense move.

voila.

just sayin

Copyright infringement

About the GQ article: I thought it was brilliantly structured and written, and I love the way it uses one team as a human and personal story, to draw the reader in, to get people interested in the sport. I think exposure is crucial, and I think we've only scrapped the surface of the potential of the sport. I can't wait until we have proper tourneys with cleanly-built courts (no more wooden boards with stenciled logos), on central squares in major cities, with spectator seating, live commentary, big screens for slow-mo replays, and a generally cleaner and sharper feel. I think the potential of these kinds of events is immense, as they'll draw more players, build more interest, and bring in more money. Hopefully one day the best players in the world can start earning money, and will spend more time playing and improving, as Emmet says. Hopefully one day the players who believed enough in the sport to invest and start companies (Milk, Magic, Northen Standard, Fixcraft etc..) will be rewarded and will be able to make a proper living.
I come from a background in skateboarding and snowboarding, and I still remember the days in the mid-80s when you'd speak to every snowboarder you'd see on the slopes (usually one or two a week!). today it's a billion-dollar industry, and it's had its ups and downs, with big corporations cashing in, but also with core riders running some of the strongest brands (Burton is a case study for any growing sport..).
I'd love bike polo to be big enough in Paris for me to be able to decide on any given night of the week to ride a few kms to one of the many courts around and play for a couple of hours with strangers and friends. Until then I've only got 2 weeknights and one day when I can play, which restricts my chances to practice.

Whoever goes to Zaragoza please take a spraycan of black paint and tag an ugly slogan on their most beautiful bit of antique architecture please... (they did just that at our Invalides court in paris and now we have an ugly as fuck "ZARAGOSA BICI POLO" ruining our spot, and threatening our legitimacy.
Punk a chien is what we call them.

Hold on, I haven't played since march, do I need to come back into the game without my face cage?

Does the Cosmic Rocket Cap exist in GOLD? Need one for my:

Buffallo Bill commented on my sock length as soon as he saw me....

Thanks for posting! I was waiting to get the final version just as I wanted it (it's meant to have a Moots stem, they put an Enve one by mistake, and a Fizik Kurve saddle)

Beyond these details the bike is amazing, dangerously fast, and a pleasure to ride!

For a minimal fee I can sign the frame next time I'm in London. Please contact my PR team: fanmail@poloambassador.com

I wanna design and print my own jersey/bibs, and get a bunch of them printed, but can't find a company that looks serious enough, where I can download a template, design my stuff, send it back, and get a reasonably priced, good quality kit sent to me. Any ideas?

Best idea in Polo since the joust

For info I won't be manning a checkpoint in full waiter regalia

Loving the front-facing fan...

JB, I didn't go for a Moots fork as they're carbon painted to lool as Ti, and I'd rather have a "raw" aspect to all parts of the bike.

Also spent an obscene amount of money on moots stem and seatpost. Forks will be ENVE carbon.