Bike polo seems like something you’d be able to watch on ESPN2—and, to paraphrase Matthew McConaughey as Wooderson from Dazed and Confused “it’d be a lot cooler if you could.”
A tight group of locals plays the sport—which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like—twice a week, Wednesdays in Maplewood and Sundays in South City at Mount Pleasant Park.
Stay up-to-date with the local arts scene
Subscribe to the weekly St. Louis Arts+Culture newsletter to discover must-attend art exhibits, performances, festivals, and more.
Here’s how it works:
- Teams are three-on-three. Usually, more than six people show up, but games (which are first-to-five-goals) go quickly and everyone gets plenty of time to play.
- Players strike an orange roller-hockey ball with mallets, which may be purchased, but are often jury-rigged from materials like ski poles and plastic gas pipes.
- Players aim for a goal which is very similar to a hockey goal.
- Bicycle spokes are often blocked-up with flat wheel covers made from plastic or cardboard to help prevent pedals, mallets and balls from getting caught in spokes.
- You have to remain on your bike at all times. If you touch the ground with your foot, you have to ride to midcourt and touch the side of the rink with your mallet, which is called “tapping out,” before you can rejoin play. Skilled players can balance while stationary by leaning their bikes a little to the side and bracing themselves with their mallet.
- Players may check one another, as in hockey, but in a much more limited fashion. Some mallet-to-mallet and body-to-body contact is allowed.
“STL Bike Polo started in 2007, but it started nationwide—playing on a hard court—in the late ’90s in the Pacific Northwest,” explained St. Louis bike polo enthusiast Rose Davis. “It’s been played on grass with rules more similar to equestrian polo since as far back as the early 1900s as a way to allow players to practice without tiring out the horses between matches… Now it’s played worldwide and nationwide, with clubs in nearly every major city in the US at this point.”
There are governing associations and regional and national tourneys, even.
When the St. Louis players gather, they often bring their own lighting to augment the night lights at the rinks.
The game is constant motion, great exercise and great fun.
STL Bike Polo will offer a demo of the sport at 10 a.m. Sunday, October 13 at the Muny in Forest Park, at an event sponsored by Trailnet. For more info, go to facebook.com/STLBikePolo or stlbikepolo.blogspot.com.
Photographs by Byron Kerman
