Chicago Hardcourt Players Bond Over Bike Polo

On an unseasonably cool Wednesday night, a group of 14 cyclists from across Chicago headed over to Garfield Park, converging in a rink on Woodward Drive built around decommissioned tennis courts. Cardboard lined the wheels of their track bikes to protect the spokes, and they toted mallets made out of ski poles and gas pipes. Oh, and they brought beer. Lots of beer.

"There are many who say that not drinking is cheating," said John Van Dellen, 24, a Bucktown bike messenger and newly addicted bike polo player, who added that playing bike polo with friends is "just a ridiculous amount of fun.”

Beer or no beer, bike polo is an actual sport, with origins dating back to the late 19th Century. It became popular among Chicago cyclists about four years ago, however, when bike polo’s Chicago “grandpa” Ben Schultz began organizing games on the South Side.

Though he is only 34, Schultz is one of the older Chicago players. He had been playing the game in grass before witnessing a New York tournament that featured hard court play—and helped start Chicago Hardcourt.

The rules of bike polo are similar to traditional polo, swapping the horses for bicycles. A typical game runs three rounds of anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes each, and most games are 3-on-3. When one team yells "Marco" and the other "Polo," all six bikes rush at each, and play begins. The goal is to simply swing a mallet and hit a roller hockey ball into the opposing goal, which is a little wider than a bike length. Feet can't touch the ground, and if they do, a player must bike to the edge of the rink and tap the wall as a penalty.

Some contact is allowed, but it has to be “like” contact: elbow-to-elbow, mallet-to-mallet or pedal-to-pedal.

"You can't just T-Bone someone with your bike," said Charlie Seeman, 26, of Rogers Park.

Bike polo players quickly learn how to balance and steer their bikes with one hand while swinging a mallet in the other. Still, a typical pickup game at Garfield Park results in whole lot of cussing, bike-bumping and spectacular spills.

"If there's one thing bike polo teaches you, it's how to fall,” said Brian Bolles, 27.

The sport also gives players the skills they need to manage in Chicago traffic: navigating through tight spaces, swerving to avoid aggressive cars and perfecting trackstanding, or the ability to keep the bike upright while it's stationary, something often done at stoplights.

The league has also helped players cultivate friendships.

"These guys are like my brothers," said Meg Mazzei, 24, of Humboldt Park. Mazzei was the lone woman who showed up to play this Wednesday evening and one of about a half dozen women in the league. Her boyfriend is also part of the league, but she said she is not timid about giving him little shoves if he's an opponent.

Bolles said people are attracted to bike polo in part because it’s "really the only team sport in cycling."

In late June, Chicago's bike polo players will take on a much more prominent space, cycling amid skyscrapers as they host the Bench Minor Tournament, a national bike polo competition, at Daley Bicentennial Plaza.

The exposure will be a sign that bike polo is becoming a little bit more mainstream, as do the emergence of bikes and mallets designed just for the sport.

"We've grown a lot," said Schultz, the veteran from Lawndale whose team, Machine Politics, finished second in last year's World Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships in Berlin. "We'll see what'll happen in the next 10 years -- if I don't kill myself (playing) first."

Even so, he and fellow veteran Bolles said bike polo will always have a do-it-yourself feel, where players will continue hacking off ski poles and bolting them to gas pipes for mallets and where pickup games keep going until everyone wears out, often not until 1 a.m. And where everyone brings a few cans of beer.

Chicago Hardcourt plays pickup games starting at around 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays and 2 p.m. Sundays at the hockey rink along Woodward Drive in Garfield Park, 100 S. Central Park. First-time players are welcome.