New court, new people!

I've noticed the title of every post I make usually includes an exclamation point. I think that's a good indicator of how excited I am every time I talk about bike polo. Tonight is no different!!!

The biggest piece of news is our new court. Well, not 'ours' per se, but as citizens of Bloomington they're ours to use I cannot say how amazing this is to play on after months of tiny tennis courts. This is just the north end of it...


...and here's a look at the south end.


Yeah, it's big....really big. Three full sized basketball courts side by side. I'd guess 200 ft maybe? It's also pretty wide. I'd bet you could fit three of our regular courts just inside this one. Anyway, the important thing is that it is amazing to play on! Concrete siding around most of it, quality chain link fence with no big gaps, excellent location (right across from the hospital ;) and its even right next to a small park with parking, bathrooms and a playground! Polo is just more fun to play when you have room to maneuver and space to make breakaways. Everyone was instantly passing better, using more control, and generally just playing better. Guess that's the advantage when you're not running into each other every 5 seconds and chasing wayward balls every 10.

In the first photo you can see some high school kids playing pickup football in the field next to the courts. This space would be so perfect for grass polo that we're about ready to give that a try any day now!



^Even the corners are nice. Note my feet in the picture, the concrete barrier I'm on is about 3 1/2 to 4 ft high and wraps around 50% of the court. Great for rebounds. And the quality fence means we're not chasing balls every five minutes. The autumn leaves made some fun obstacles and we even started a few games by hiding the ball in a pile of leaves in the middle of the court! Fun times.




^And since we were playing on Halloween, Ashley decided to come in full regalia! Cool costume, cool girl, cool bike.




^Some of the players hanging out between games... Ok, now for the bad part- we can only play during the day. The court has a couple lights, but they're pathetic and in no way meant to illuminate the courts for use. For now we'll just use this as our Saturday afternoon spot, but a neighbor told us the city was thinking of putting lights anyway.... maybe we can help urge them in the right direction.

I don't want to get to far ahead of myself, but I this could be an amazing location for a tournament. Or at least some springtime friendlies.





Second thing I'm really excited about is all the awesome new people! Some enthusiastic new guys came tonight, the second-third timers are already really good, and the regulars are honing their skills.


^You can't really tell, but a goal is about to be scored in this pic. This is about as good of an action shot as I can get with my shitty camera

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^Edwin's war wounds from a high mallet tonight. His glasses protected his eye but it was not cool at all. Gotta remember to keep them sticks down!



Good times were had by all! And this kid named Brent stopped by and told us about a night ride that occurs every full moon! A great idea that had just been mentioned by a fellow polo player not one hour before! The internets tell me that the next full moon is on December 2nd, so hopefully we can all join forces by then and enjoy some moonlit night-cycling.

Midwesterns at COMO this weekend. Very excited, we'll see how it goes.

-W.