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nice one!

i'm large - other people concerned (fin, ben, you, andy) i'd guess at medium?

i'd be well up for it, but as discussed with pete, someone more enthusiastic needs to do the legwork - i have my work cut out with polo tournaments etc.

i like friday night races, partly because i think more people would come post-work and i'm assuming most people work in/around town.

although i'd also be cool with sat night as i'm working anyway - i just suspect some people doing non-cyling things.

sunday would be no good for me missus/family/countryside ride/polo day...

get on a train and come play! summer won't be here forever.

nice ride out to the track today - i was impressed by how nice the track looks. we should organise an bfgss night there, including cash prizes and beer drinking. will halesowen people support?

i particularly like the second design - if you could get them done, i'd be happy to pay.

if not, i also like the idea of wifebeaters and will reluctantly agree to string vests or whatever abomination ben thinks is best if dan also agrees to that.

now i understand why polo is played in teams of three....

For our Birmingham throw-in's the falls always seem to be on top of each other. When people are crowded or lose balance when hit / tangled by someone else.

birmingham is plagued by a couple of players with shockingly weak single-pivot roadie brakes from the 70s - the pile-ups almost always involve those players.

those photos of me are in no way representitive of my mastery of the game.

black stabbath will probably arrive at the court(s) around 11am Friday - anyone going to be there that early for throw-ins? we want to get as many pre-tournament games in as possible as we anticipate an early exit.

I'll join thee for midday. Got to be back for 4 ish.

i'll head back with you then.

i'll come if you're not leaving too early.

well done lawrence!

second photo looks like fin is having a go at george and all lee wants to do is practise one-foot trackstands!!!

sounds like george's race experience shone through!

we should all do the skyride on our polo bikes and hand out flyers to convert the masses - although by then i can see we may need to amend times/places to take account of darker nights.

good idea?

i have a rack you can borrow. it's set to hatchback.

i'm out too - personal reasons, hope it's a good night.

if george can wrap his teenage brain around a map everyone else had better watch out (pro-rider to be...)

ride safe everyone!

yeah, once you're past bar plugs (especially as there's really no reason *not *to have them besides laziness) it's all really debatable. i'm impressed by the relative lack of serious injuries caused by polo considering the potential. it speaks volumes about players' common sense and sense of fair play. it's so rare to come across people who play dangerously, yet games are still really competetive.

polo rules.

italian cup and cone BB!

no riding this weekend, gutted.

these things go hand in hand...

dfp does, occasionally, play polo, by the way.

wheels are scary for toes (although the injuries aren't that bad, sprains and bruises mostly), but if you fell and slotted a hand/finger into a spinning one, you'd know about it. i guess that's dfp's point about disc brakes too.

having said that, i agree with what everyone's said so far about these being hypothetical and certainly no worse than your average jog or kick-around. we're creeping into 'freak accident' territory now.

i used to ride with an exposed chainring and think they're dangerous, but body parts are rarely near them and it's never going to be a safe area anyway, epsecially for fixed bikes which'll drag pretty much anything into them and chew them up (i lost a trouser leg and have seen people severely fuck their fingers up).

i've had my feet caught up in spokes a few times, wearing skate shoes, which i suppose are mid-ground in the shoe-safety heirarchy. i reckon they're at least as dangerous as exposed chainrings and would be happier if covers were mandatory, but i know lots of people use their polo bike as their commuting/pub bike, so i don't really expect this to happen.

does anyone know of stiff-soled shoes (stops the shoe and hence your foot inside from bending) with moderate toe protection? i'm not quite ready to join will from cambridge by getting my site boots out of the loft...

all the touring/spd style shoes i can think of have lightweight uppers...

does anyone know who we'd need to talk to to see if we could book the highgate court for a weekend tournament?

pistaboy spoke to his local something-or-other, but i think he's a different postcode/area.

dfp - this is one of those things you usually know something about.

birmingham city council? highgate something-or-other?

Last sunday we invited some players from Cambridge and Manchester over to Birmingham for a mini-tournament, throw-in, day-out thing.

Partial or complete lineups from Netto, Doommallets, Fen Boy 3, 3 Guys 10 Eyes, Cream, Black Stabbath and B Team came for the afternoon and the Fen Boys took victory. As the actual 'tournament' was impromptu, there was no prize. Sorry.

General consesus was that we have an ace court (designed for 'urban cricket') which is a bit bigger than most, perfectly flat and grippy as fuck. If we can book it, we'll be having a bigger, open tournament maybe this year, maybe next - there are photos here if you're interested:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan_lj/sets/72157624428294604/

Apologies for keeping this one small, but we really didn't want to invite loads of people then find out the court was busy or locals objected. If anyone wants to make the journey, we play Wednesday nights from about 7pm - 10pm.

all those rules look like an improvement on what's gone before. i especially like the graded punishments but it's going to put more pressure on the refs - hope they're up to it...

i've noticed people at tournaments with massive cutouts in the front of their mallets (some cosmic players, rik) who 'push' the ball around and i now do it loads. can we clarify that this isn't ball jointing (as it's not dragging)?

things i've noted:

helmets are compulsory,
only captain can talk to the ref (i'm named as captain, happy to swap if ben/dan want it),
after a no-goal (shuffle) the defending team gets the ball and the other team goes back to their own half,
blocking the goal while foot-down may get a 30 second penalty,
'excessive' hacking can be penalised,
throwing mallets not allowed at any time,
we can request time-outs after conceding goals, or because of technical problems as long as we're in posession,
'striking' mallets can be penalised in various ways,

i think we need to calm down our hacking (sometimes see dan doing this in competetive games, i'm guilty too, ben not so much) and replace it with 'hooking'.

all in all i think they're good rules, intened to address the shortcomings of 'tap-out' punishments. knowing, (and using) timeouts could have helped us in the past, so let's bare those in mind.

looks like the organisers are instituting some new rules for the euros - may be a good idea to familiarise ourselves: http://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1ejwGbXBOKGXq8r_KT7-Y9GvFN14--QI3EeBMTcD1Ry4