A little Polo talk.

As the world knows, or at least a few of us, Blogger had some issues yesterday and instead of fighting with it more, I decided to walk away from the Interweb-box so for today, let's talk a little polo. Mentioned two weeks ago, the Midwest Bike Polo Championships went down over in Minneapolis and our GM, Matt, headed over to compete with a few other of the Grand Rapids crew. It didn't take long for pictures to start to surface from this event, you can check some of those out here and here.


The GR team seems to have successfully stayed off of all photo blogs and sites on event; having only one photo of two of the 3 members caught in action, sort of.


The North American Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships are going on coming up here in July across the lake in Madison, Wisconsin. The Midwest Championships had 44 teams make it out and from the message boards it looks like crews from Seattle and some from the east and south will be venturing up to make this another great event.

Bicycle Friends Falling from Mr.Do on Vimeo.

Sure the video isn't from either MWBPC, NAHBPC or any of the previous years but that never hurt anyone.

Finally, this past month we were contacted by a new magazine down in Austin, The Dropout. Their latest issue was released yesterday and will eventually make it's way to view/read online. There's rumors of a Halo write up there, check it out and their previous issues.

Monday Videos

Another day. Another Monday. After a weekend, the mind is always a little sluggish; so why not keep it simple today with a few videos to hopefully stimulate the mind on this Monday morning.

First, if there was any question on bike polo, this video sure does clear it up. Well... it doesn't but it was posted over a on the Hardcourt Bike Polo website, which is a great site to get an idea of the ins and outs of this segment of the cycling world.

The next video was posted over at Urban Velo last week: the Red Bull Minidrome. Yes, you read this correctly, minidrome. And yes, it is that sweet.

Red Bull Minidrome from Radar Films on Vimeo.

I'll leave you with a video I stumbled onto this weekend on the GR Bike Park. With the Mayor's ride coming up this weekend, it's exciting to see how this park has developed and is developing [plus, you can see Ryan and J-Bolt doing a few runs on the pump track]:

because we ride... Polo Time.

This week we have our fearless GM's, Matt, polo bike. We've got a nice little write up for you, enjoy:

'A winter commuter turned polo rig.'

The frame is a Specialized HardRock that I got from Doug Koster in the spring of 2005. I don’t know where he got it and that’s probably for the best. It was stripped bare and rattle canned in the basement of 2208 Godwin in Grand Rapids. The fork is a RockShox Quadra that came from Doug at the same time. The steer tube was extended and re-welded to fit this bike. Shimano STX headset and stock Specialized stem and bars. Lefty style Altus 420 brake lever to a Tektro rear cantilever. Brake housing is routed through a top tube pad purchased by Bob Zeilstra during a holiday in Japan. My future grandchildren will thank me for the Raceface stem pad. Specialized seat post, Schwinn saddle, Salsa clamp.

The front wheel is a 26” Deep V ATB (OG Chukker) laced to a Velocity ATB hub with butted spokes. The rear wheel is a 26” Aeroheat rim laced to a Velocity cutout flange track hub with 14 gauge spokes. 32 spokes each and both are 3 cross.

The rear hub has been re-spaced to accept a 5 speed freewheel which is the only way I could get the chain line and length to work out. Gearing is 27x21. Cranks are 170mm Shimano Alivios…black on one side silver on the other due to an unfortunate bike chucking incident. Rear tire is a Continental Town and Country from Jacobi’s tandem, front is a Specialized Crossroads that was probably on the bike when I got it. She’s a real gnarly bitch.

For those of you who need a little 'how to' on the ins and outs of Bike Polo, I found a video for you below. Come this spring if you're in the West Michigan area and want to try your hand in the sport, on Sundays and Wednesdays under the S-Curve there are matches normally going on.