Birmingham Bike Polo Chat & BS Thread

A garunteed court space with flood lights and faultless fencing is worth sorting out car shares once a month to play on imo. you'll be converted tomorrow Danski :)

Once a month may be do-able. Did I misunderstand the gist of that email - they want to be paid, right?

Cambridge tournament! End of feb - http://www.lfgss.com/thread58350.html

Current page bump

They want to be paid - they're a mini goverment. Of course they want to be paid, in her own words they want paying for regular use (more than once a week), they dont allow bikes but will if you pay (£12 for 2 hours) they've suggested we may be illegible (sp?) for a grant, that park has £300,000 of funding to do something with by 2012 to improve sports within the park.

they just asking us to do a little paper work and say when we would like the court

for a practise they would like us to book, I think it was £12 for two hours
for tourneys they would like us to be more formal

I'm looking at this with an overall out come of thumbs up

see what you think tomorrow, see if you think it's worth playing with

£12 for two hours is nothing. Almost defeats the object of asking for the money... Bloody Government.

From what I've seen, it may not be a perfect tournament venue as it has high boundaries. They're great for playing on, but poor for spectating. Highgate is really bad for it, being so tightly criss-cross. Some are better though.

Anyway, I'll see it tomorrow.

£300,000 would make a sweet polo/roller hockey court. Why can't Birmingham do that?

It's not a perfect tourny venue, it is spot on for playing on (imo), hacklers will just have to shout louder. Nice grassyness all round, shop not far away.

Mmmm £300k, even if we even had a grand we could book the court for a twice monthly play for 2 years and still buy some fizzy cola bottles (and pay for our fuel)

7.30 till 9.30 play is very doable for people coming from Brum/Bromsgrove/Leicester/leamington /shrug/ see moro.

One more sleep :) (still not got a rear brakes.. will go do now)

Birmingham Bike Polo, not Coventry!! Not everyone on here can finish work and hoof it over to other pastures. Pesonally i think that takes the piss a bit SImples..

On that notion I'll check out that local court by me, may be cool for Sunday use or emergency.

Dan, any more news on Birmingham Wheels?

Cov should grow a scene too, Simps etc could run it, then have blood/crips polo wars with us foreign language motherfuckers here in B'ham

do you mind i was beating to death a cat ready to chuck in my local canal.

Equally simon, there are other people who are interested but can't get into brum for 6.30 n a wed or play sunday mornings, it can only be a good thing if we can get a larger catchment.

There's also no reason why it cant be WMBP not just BHM BP. there are atleast three regular players who make 20 / 30 mile trips to play, there are also atleast three people who drive to practise, if you're getting in the car to make a 15 minute trip across brum, it's not much more hassle to make it 40minutes for a garunteed court.

i also think people can, do and should voice their own opinions.

It'll be summer soon /ish. Do these hard courts get used more then? could we possibly switch to grass polo? or is that too much of a change of tack?

Summer was pretty much fine last year, just playing at Highgate. Sometimes kids/people using the court, but that's inevitable.

2squeak - I reported back about Brum Wheels a few pages back.

I, for one, am not interested in grass polo, at all.

Void - I couldn't run Polo as a proper splinter cell, i don't know the game well enough. gimme six months

right - helps please knowledgable types.
i've had a look in my box of stuff (one for void) and I found a few bits and bobs,
Are Weinman Alpha calipers better than what I have on my bike now? the brake blocks are really short, but are the calipers better? I dunno

What I have on the bike:
http://i890.photobucket.com/albums/ac106/sjhanson/bike%20bits%20misc/08122010200.jpg

What I got in reserve
http://s890.photobucket.com/albums/ac106/sjhanson/bike%20bits%20misc/?action=view&current=25012011546.jpg

OR http://s890.photobucket.com/albums/ac106/sjhanson/bike%20bits%20misc/?action=view&current=25012011547.jpg (no idea what these are or if they fit, I doubt they will, I could maybe rob the brake block off if to put on the current set up?)

Neither of those are better than what you have. The weinmanns may be the same.

The only way to improve what you have is to get dual-pivot road brakes. They're probably in between what you have now and V-brakes in terms of power.

Okay, cheers Danski, will go get some brake blocks tomorrow.
I'm happy with the stopping power of my brakes, just the calipers seem shite quality.

It's not a perfect tourny venue, it is spot on for playing on (imo), hacklers will just have to shout louder. Nice grassyness all round, shop not far away.

Mmmm £300k, even if we even had a grand we could book the court for a twice monthly play for 2 years and still buy some fizzy cola bottles (and pay for our fuel)

7.30 till 9.30 play is very doable for people coming from Brum/Bromsgrove/Leicester/leamington /shrug/ see moro.

One more sleep :) (still not got a rear brakes.. will go do now)

I would be game for 7.30 till 9.30 in Coventry

@StuF - if you're around town any day this week, pop in to OYB for some flyers. If not, I'll try to remember to bring them on Sunday (keep forgetting...)

I got hammered last night at Custard Factory so my body wasn't up to the ride this morning. I'm pretty busy until the weekend so can you bring the flyers to Sunday polo? I'll remind you

Yep - sure thing.

Birmingham Wheels Update

One of our secret helpers has alerted me to another potential spot at the park. It doesn't have barriers (although tyres may be available, and we could try to make our own), although it does have floodlights (albeit 'nothing special' - upgrade potential?).

I'll try to get over there sometime soon to check out the surface, space etc. If anyone wants to join, (or scout it out independtly) let me know and I'll pass on the location description.

#tryingnottogetmyhopesup

there's a whole floorspace near where i work, filled with those white and red plastic barriers that are used on our roads, but if they were indeed "surplus to requirement" a van would be needed, with a few trips....
i'll keep tabs on 'em

Nice one!

Re: Birmingham Wheels

The space referred to a few posts back is a bit too lumpy/cambered and rough to justify the time, effort and money it would take to build a court. It may be worth re-visiting the idea if we get properly desparate in the future, though.

@ void - substitute 'milkshake' for orange juice. and make it past tense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKQ3LXHKB34

attn new(er) players - evidence of the overwhelming popularity of gear ratios like mine, to be found here:

https://www.lfgss.com/thread38580-5.html

Interesting. I do wish some people would fill forms in properly though :)

Awesome, this is it surely.

Has possibilities

my limited art skills:

The real thing:


BSA and Brooks

My youngest and her first mallet.

I asked her this morning if she wanted to play football on a team at school and she replied "no, I want to play Bike Polo!"