The most fun you'll have on two wheels – Since 2006
On Saturday May 17th in association with Boston Shines, BBP players spent the day cleaning up Smith Park. The park is the home turf of Boston Bike Polo, and it has been due for a clean up. We picked up bottles, cigarette buts, about a million bottle caps, and some abandoned homeless people encampments. You can safely say Smith Park is a cleaner place this week. Help us keep it clean for the rest of the summer!
Here is a video of the final of the Eastside Thaw. Nick Kruse, James and Yeager beat Jav, Drew and Troy 6-5.
I recommend watching this on mute and pumping your own soundtrack (mostly because it’s embarrassing for me) but I will say that the Jav puns are pretty good – especially around the middle of the video.
photo: bostonbikepolo
photo: Grace Donnelly
photo: Dominique Rio Frío
There has been some literature on the internet (you know what) this week that encouraged me to explore my feelings towards bike polo. At first I thought bummed things; I didn’t feel comfortable questioning the legitimacy of the activity which I hold so dearly. But I quickly realized I was becoming the victim of the law of attraction: Yes, I’ve spent many nights and years and dollars and beers, and polo may have burnt me out once or twice. But, being burnt out ain’t that hard of a problem to solve. I mix it up, take a break, go snowboarding, hang with old friends, switch to flat pedals. You’ll feel the love. I’ll feel the love.
I love EVERYTHING about it. I love the all bike polo people and all the bike polo places. I love all the bike polo clubs, all the bike polo companies, and all the bike polo rules (except high-sticking). I love all the bike polo blogs and all the bike polo forums. I love the bike polo #hashtags and instagrams, and I especially love the bike polo nudes. I love the places bike polo has taken me. I love Burlington, Vermont, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Vancouver, British Columbia, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Montreal, Quebec, Lexington, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington. I fucking love Seattle Bike Polo. I love that polo gives me an excuse to take a long road trip or a quick weekend to the other side of the continent, no matter how broke I am. I love traveling with my bike. I love taking my bike on an airplane. I love taking off my fork when I am packing up my bike. I love putting my bike together in the airport, but not as much as I love how stoked OTHER people are when they see me putting my bike together in the airport. I love not knowing where the fuck I am when I leave a new airport on my bike. I love how when you show up to pickup from the airport, you are hanging out with the same people you would have been if you’d lived in that city your entire life.
I love riding my polo bike. I love riding in a gang filled with all sorts of other polo people and polo bikes from near and far forming a mob spanning the street in the night. I love the whirrly sound the mob makes because everyone has the same sick freewheel. I love riding TOO fast on my polo bike, skitching across the Mass. Ave. bridge or up Pine Street. Thats a guaranteed adrenaline high. I know its not safe but I just love polo too much to wait any longer to get to the court and play. I love meeting a random polo player on the street because I noticed that they’re riding a polo bike. That’s how I started playing polo in the first place.
I love all of the polo people, even if they are from New York. I love the polo people with beards and shitty tattoos, and the ones without beards or with good tattoos. I love all of the polo people from other countries who have crashed on my couch and spoke with funny accents, and who did or would let me do the same at their place. I love all of the polo people who travel across the GLOBE to play polo. I love all of the polo people who lend me bike parts when mine get fucked up. I love the polo people who share tokes of herb. I love the polo people who share swigs of booze, especially when they’re from Kentucky. I love all of the polo people I will one day meet. But more than all of these tangible things, I love how much fucking PASSION all of these polo people have.
I love bike polo even when it’s dirty. I love cheap shots, unless someone gets hurt. I love polo heckles, especially if they cut deep. I love that I’ve lost significant amounts of blood playing polo. I fucking love when I get slammed cleanly into the boards, even more when it’s by Dirks.
I love playing pickup. I love all throw-ins. I hate dabbing. I love how stoked a new player gets when they score their first goal. I love that I can spend an entire day at the polo court and not get bored. I love that it gives me an excuse to drink outside because I love drinking outside. I love that shotgunning brings us together.
I love that polo love is spreading with no end in sight. -Addison
(And to prove I’m not alone and full of shit here is a small collection of photos of other people who also love bike polo):
It’s that time of year – the time to make New Year’s resolutions, only to fail at them around the third week of January, make a half-hearted attempt to restart them in mid-February, and then totally abandon the resolutions all together by March. Maybe this year it will be different. Probably not. But either way, here are MY polo related resolutions for 2014:
– Master the Mateusz (of Berlin/Krakow) Goal. It’s that goal when you’re racing down the court and on the goal line you just tap the ball between the goalie’s wheels. I’m going to master it this year.
– Don’t break any more bones. (This is kinda a big one.)
– This is going to be the year of being that person. You know that person – the one who goes to the court on off days to hit around by themselves (ideally with some headphones listening to some sweet reggae tunez), shows up early to pick-up, and, you know, practices. I want to be that person this year. For once.
– GO TO LADIES ARMY. BUT SRSLY THIS TIME.
– Play tournaments in the northeast, and make northeast polo friends (I’m looking at you Eastside polo).
– Encourage more rad women to play polo in Boston.
– Be a good club member in Boston/help get shit done/be friendz.
I asked some of the other members of BBP for their goals, and this is what they said:
– be able to to put every shot (that i want) top shelf
– bring the radcaps lifestyle interstellar
– talk less shit to the refs (especially while i’m playing) (unless they deserve it)
– shotgun way more beers
– stay fully fanged
-stay injury free
-go to nahbpc and maybe worlds
– improve shot accuracy
-teach Diego how to ride a push bike
BEARCAT2004/ZAC’S RESOLUTIONS:
–Never lose my temper on the court
-Get on my bike and practice ball touches once a week, separately from pickup
-Qualify for NAs
-Qualify for worlds, even if i can’t afford to go
-Write cooler articles for the blog
-And alan i’m with you on hanging out with polo kids when not at polo.
YoungBlood said that he’s going to “actually play polo.”
And
Toby’s resolution
is to post a picture of his lunch everyday on our forum. This was his first one.
when the nyc club came up here in may for the first in hopefully a long series of city vs. city matches, it rained a lot. and basically the only one on their team scoring goals was Ken. final score was 2 numbers and boston won. yeah, so we knew they couldn’t wait to get us down there to redeem themselves.
it took a minute but we finally got ourselves down to the ol’Pit for the rematch a few weeks ago. tony, thunder and I took the early bus and found jake the first guy there waiting on some dude meditating dead center of the court.
blahblahblah… one hour, 9 goals between both teams, i score the game winner with two minutes left. victory beers on the bus back were tasty.
full game was shot by Clement.
boston.com is featuring the recent boston bike polo tourney video “Try it Again” on their front page under “Your videos” – thanks guys!
from Mary, photographer for Boston Bike Reflector…
hey all!
bring a friend, bring a bike! today (last minute, i know…) i’m doing a photo shoot for the third issue of ‘boston bicycle reflector’.
if you haven’t seen it, check out our blog here: http://reflector.bostonbiker.org/
the plan is:
1. meet at harrison ave. and traveler street in the south end around 6:30. MAP
2. ride over the 4th street bridge as a group into southie while i photograph it.
3. go grab a drink or food at foley’s (optional, but recommended)
messenger types, spandexos, high heels riders, and a healthy variety of race, gender, ages are wanted! all types, all kind of bikes.
hope to see you there!
Boston’s Greenways: Eight Missing Links
Tuesday April 22
6:30 p.m.
Northeastern University
The April 22 event will serve as Northeastern Professor Peter Furth’s civil and environmental engineering students’ official final presentation for their senior design class with five teams presenting. The students have created group projects to design bikeways/walking paths for challenging sections of the Emerald Necklace. The presentations will be in room 108 Snell Engineering Center at Northeastern University. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy is co-hosting this event with Fenway Alliance, Mass Bike, Walk Boston and the Solomon Fund.
They got some press here, and bostonbiker dug up some more info here
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
