New twist on polo gains foothold in gritty Philly arenas

Every Monday evening, the pioneers of bike polo ride to a weary urban rink at Aramingo and Lehigh Avenues in Philadelphia.

They have been egged by neighborhood kids, heckled for playing sissy "bike golf." They understand. They are ahead of their time. These men and women are innovators, perfecting and advancing a new global sport.

Tucker Waugh rode up Monday night with his broom, because there is no grounds crew as in more established sports. He swept up the broken bottles left by locals who don't respect this rink as the living laboratory it is.

Waugh, 30, moved here from Savannah, Ga., a few weeks ago just for bike polo. "I'm not going to lie," he said. Why should he?

Philadelphia is a bike polo capital.

With the addition of Waugh, the city has 25 skilled players, the second-highest count in North America, after Seattle.

Waugh also takes his broom on Wednesdays, when bike polo athletes meet at Rizzo Rink, at Front Street and Washington Avenue in South Philly, playing beneath the constant thunder of I-95. There is never glass to sweep, but brake dust rains down from America motoring overhead.

Players don't mind the gritty urban landscape. It symbolizes the uncorrupted honesty of a developing sport. And that is precisely the tension.

Bike polo is exploding.

Just last month, Philadelphia hosted a big East Coast tournament, and the official sign said, "East Side Polo Invitational Sponsored by Fuze."

A corporate sponsor! Bike polo is that big.

Back in the sport's infancy, say 2005, the mallet was a primitive device - wood, heavy, like its cousin in croquet. But then a visionary built one using a ski pole - genius! Worldwide, the mallet changed over night.

Players want to build the sport and love traveling the country, going to new tournaments, making friends, as one said, "in sort of a summer camp way." But they don't want the sport co-opted by corporations, by big money, to go the way of skateboarding.

Bike polo springs from the bike messenger culture, and many of its premier players are bike enthusiasts. You need to know bikes to repair the constant bent forks, broken spokes, dented chain rings, and flat tires.

"My bike is cobbled together with garbage," said Brendan McHugh, who works in a bike shop but also does freelance film accounting. "I'll grab an old wheel off a junked bike because you know it's going to get destroyed."

These are athletes, not hipsters.

Bike polo is sport, not counterculture statement.

"I equate hipsters as fickle fashion mongers," said Peter Dalkner, 34, an artist and four-year bike polo veteran. "Sure, there are some people who have dabbled in it looking for the next urban fringe thing, something new to do with their bicycle-shaped fashion accessory. Those people maybe only stick around for an evening, and then we never see them show up at pickup again."

Dalkner conceded that "as a newcomer it can be intimidating to see people riding around waving sticks in the air and crashing." He and others also noted nobody is good when he starts.

"Whether it's just lending a mallet, helmet, or bicycle, we try to get people off of the sidelines and experience it for themselves," he said. "It's easy for new players to stay connected. There's a Twitter account that announces pickup game times and locations as well as a Google group for people to chat about things when we're in between pickup days."

Mark Capriotti, 28, a helicopter engineer and coffee roaster, is the best player in Philadelphia, and aspires to be the best in the world.

"My style of play is fast and aggressive," he said. "I have a reputation for having a good shot. Therefore, I can draw defenders, which allows me to be a setup guy if I have to, but I have no problem scoring."

The essential skills are eye-hand coordination and balance. Try riding fast, one-handed, in an enclosed oval with five other riders, all whirling mallets and trying to whip a little red ball into a goal the size used in squirt soccer.

Most players wear knee pads, lacrosse gloves, and helmets. Feet are not allowed to touch the ground.

"You're going to go home with welts," said Cris George, 35, moments before he crashed into the boards Monday night and went home with welts.

Tommy Manson, 24, is the bad boy. He describes himself as the DeSean Jackson of Philadelphia bike polo. He is flamboyant, a trash talker, "sometimes with a disregard for safety," he said. He has borrowed and ruined two of Dalkner's helmets. Whenever there's a collision, he gets blamed.

"It's not easy," he lamented. But he must bear up, because he loves bike polo and knows how to play only one way - all out.