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David Morley started playing bike polo sometime around 2010, when the sport and he were both very young. Now they’re both a few years older, but David’s love for the sport remains.
The full transcript of this episode of KUT News Now is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
This Is My Thing: Bike Polo!
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Michael Lee [00:00:10] I’m Michael Lee and you’re listening to This Is My Thing. You’re probably hearing this show as part of the ‘KUT News Now’ podcast feed. And that title is only two-thirds correct in our case. This is a KUT production. You are hearing it right now. But it is not at all a news show. On This Is My Thing, we talk to people about the things they do just for themselves. It’s not their job and it’s not a responsibility. It’s just a thing that brings them joy or feeds their soul.
This week: bike polo!
If you’re not familiar with this sport, bike polo is pretty much what the name suggests. The gameplay is similar to traditional polo, with the key difference that players ride bicycles and not horses.
My guest this week is David Morley, who’s been an avid player for almost 15 years.
David Morley [00:01:01] My name is David Morley and I play bike polo.
Michael Lee [00:01:04] Tell me where that came from. How did you get started with this?
David Morley [00:01:06] Well, I started playing bike polo down in San Marcos when I was in grad school. We played on campus there, and the sport really began kind of in early 2000s. It was a shoot off of bike messenger culture, a lot of fixed gear culture and kind of spread like wildfire along a lot of cities and a lot of this bike culture, fixie community. And then kind of landed in San Marcos a little bit around 2010, 2011. And at that point, the sport was very, very much new, very DIY culture. So do it yourself. We had to create everything ourselves. We were figuring out the materials to make these mallets, make these bikes out of make these wheel covers. At that time, still learning how to play. Still learning what the game was. So a lot of racks, a lot of bikes needed to be fixed and made to the sport. So that taught me a lot about bike mechanics. And I think that was really another thing that gravitated towards the sport is we were constantly trying to, you know, find these old debates we could fix up to make into these bike polo bikes. And then, you know, bending their wheels and having to go in and hammer them back into place. And, you know, I also was just a group of friends who we all kind of came up together. So we were learning the sport together, which was also really exciting because, you know, one of you would get a little bit better and then he’d be like, man, he’s practicing. I got to start practicing this.
David Morley at the bike polo field We’re here at Metz Park, the home of Austin, Texas, by color. I would say definitely the essentials of bike for the ability to ride a bicycle and the enjoyment of riding a bicycle. It’s an interesting way to compete, to go fast, to, you know, compete a. You’re racing someone to the ball against the wall. So it can be very thrilling and that speed aspect and kind of close quarters. So I think that’s something that definitely is essential, liking that, enjoying that aspect of it.
Michael Lee [00:02:50] So you were sort of in on the early days of this sport becoming a sport?
David Morley [00:02:53] Yeah, definitely. It was kind of the early doors then. We were still San Marcos was kind of new. We would come up and play in Austin and Austin was already on this other level. Like at that time, kind of early 2010, people were moving to Austin just to play bike polo because the competitive level was so high. I was definitely not at that point yet. And then my friends were we would come up to Austin and almost get intimidated by the level of play that was already available then what those players were doing at that time. And now the sport is at an entirely different level. Everyone has their own custom bikes on custom mallets. Everything is custom fit. Before I was kind of you’re you had this beta bike that was your bike polo bike. Now it’s probably the bike you spent the most money on. It’s, you know, very slick, very nice, all, you know, super nice components to everything. And then, yeah, we definitely have international competitions. There’s a world bike polo tournament, there’s a national competition. So, yeah, that the outlet for competitive nature definitely is there as well.
Michael Lee [00:03:54] Is that part of what’s kept you doing this for so long? Is that it feels like a community?
David Morley [00:03:58] Yeah, absolutely. That’s a big part of what makes it my thing and why I enjoy it is that community element. It’s really cool that you have these people, that you’re all into this weird niche thing together. We hang out, we talk about bike polo, we watch, you know, tournaments and things like that. And I think traveling is a big part of it because, you know, there is there’s so many different seasons. Tournaments happen all over and people host tournaments. We go travel to tournaments. And that’s definitely a big part of it is traveling around and seeing these different communities and interacting with people from all over the nation and all over the world because yeah, it is played in all over and all these cities, you know, Chicago, New York, L.A., I played in Tokyo. So that’s another really cool aspect of it. There’s this kind of global community which you can, you know, travel all over the world, sleep on someone’s couch, and you play polo and, you know, is very interested in people. And so it was, you know, such an amazing experience I’ve had with the bike pole community all over the world and being so accepting. And when I moved to Birmingham in the UK, when I showed up the first night, you know, there’s there’s 30 people there. I just moved to the city. One of the players, you know, she tells me, you’re one of us now. Like, welcome. They invited me to a party that night and you know, all of a sudden I went from knowing no one in the city to having like, a huge fan group. So, I mean, I honestly kind of teared up when she said that. I was like, Yeah, you don’t. What it’s like I’ve lived all over and what that is to just move to a place new and already be accepted by a large group of people.
Michael Lee [00:05:22] I was guessing from your story – it sounded like your point of entry was the bike more than the polo. And that’s probably pretty common?
David Morley [00:05:28] Absolutely, yes. Most people came from kind of bike messenger, fixy culture or BMX culture. I did have a friend who played horse polo for a while. His skills really didn’t transfer too much from horse polo to bike polo, but obviously it is kind of like swinging a mallet and riding, you know, understanding lines and things like that as well.
David Morley at the bike polo field When we play pickup, everyone has their own mallet and everyone kind of builds it their own way. It’s definitely you can buy all the the parts to it, but you have to kind of create it yourself. Kind of like maybe building your own lightsaber in Star Wars. And it’s basically how you know which team you’re gonna be on. So I have six mallets here. There’s six people that play the sport. Three v three. So what I’m going to do is shuffle these up and just basically hold them behind my back and mix them up. And then I’ll take three on each side and then toss them to the sides. And so now we know who’s on whose team.
David Morley Basically, then we’ll line up and start the new game. So normally how the play goes is one person is kind of playing goalie. There’s no position, so you’re kind of rotating in and out. But one person definitely always kind of wants to have their bike parked in front of goal. And then, you know, two people attacking, always kind of rotating around. Really, the main rules is, one, in order to make a shot, you have to actually swing the hammer and make a contact, a hammer, motion contact to the ball. And then the other rule is you can’t put your foot down. So you have to have your feet up the whole time. We call putting your foot down dabbing. If you do that, you have to basically get out of play and tap back in center court.
Michael Lee [00:06:59] Is there a professional bike polo level or is it all amateur?
David Morley [00:07:02] No, not yet. That was kind of a dream of some companies in the past of making it this professional level. It’s it’s unfortunately not the, I don’t know, the spectator sport that a lot of people hope it is. There’s always the joke that, you know, a record attendance for a bike polo tournament is one person that’s not actually involved in the tournament. So usually we don’t turn out a lot of crowds. But I think that is definitely changing. Definitely at these these national tournaments, you’ll see a lot of spectators stands full for people because it’s also, you know, the community is there as well. You get to hang out with all your friends from all over the, you know, global bipolar community.
Michael Lee [00:07:37] So, like dream scenario is that the crowd outnumbers the players.
David Morley [00:07:40] Yes. Yeah. Or at least maybe equal to the number of players.
Field audio of bike polo game
Michael Lee [00:07:54] What do you think the future is for bike polo? Do you see it getting bigger, becoming more established?
David Morley [00:07:59] And I think it’s going to continue to grow. I think we may be in a little bit of stagnant period, I think, here in the US, but honestly, France has taken over with it. The world competition, the French teams have won. I think the last 2 or 3 world competitions, they dominated the last world competition. I think the last North American team was eliminated pretty early in that competition. So it was all French teams, all European teams there. And so I think that’s also really encouraged a lot of the US based players to really step up their game and take it to them next year and next world competition. And yeah, I definitely think it growing. I don’t know. I saw all this thing on this. There’s this World games or something where you can like compete to get the games that want to be in the Olympics. And I was like, is that something we should do? A bike polo? And yeah, I don’t know. I think yeah, definitely. So I’d like to see it. That’ll be really cool. I don’t know, ten years from now to see bike polo in the Summer Olympics. Who knows?
Field audio of bike polo game
Michael Lee [00:09:02] What is it about this sport in particular that has kept your interest for all these years?
David Morley [00:09:13] I think for me personally, I really kind of like the speed of it. It’s it’s kind of a way to have competition on bicycle where you’re not, you know, sitting there for hours sweating, you know, in spandex out there in the middle of nowhere on a road. The speed of it, you know how we go fast and have to break. You’re basically playing chicken with another player, riding towards the ball against a, you know, concrete wall who’s going to break quicker. How fast can you turn this bike around? You know, And then also in very tight spaces, you know, with players all around you. Everyone’s moving. So it really does have this, you know, very exciting element of of speed, of trying to figure out where the limit is on your bicycle. Every time people see this sport, it looks very dangerous. We definitely do crash a lot. You learn how to fall off your bike very well. I’ve fallen off my bike countless times, I can tell you. But I’ve never experienced any huge injuries. And, you know, other than some scrapes and things like that, I’ve never witnessed any. So we’re definitely, you know, very adept at falling off the bikes.
Field audio of bike polo game
Michael Lee [00:10:17] How long do you think you can keep playing?
David Morley [00:10:20] That’s a great question. You know, sometimes I think about that, you know, as I get older. I’m 37 now. You know, there’s young kids out there and I’m not I’m definitely not the oldest player. But yeah, you know, I think when I’m on my toes, you know, those, those falls off your bike, you bounce right up, you get off now I feel it. You know, the next couple of days some of these bruising. So I, you know, I think I’d like to play as long as I can. I don’t really I think I’ve also kind of that self preservation as you get older kind of grows, you know, as a little less squirrely and wild up think.
Michael Lee [00:10:50] And after that, if eventually some day you’re no longer on the bike, do you think you’ll it’ll still be part of your life?
David Morley [00:10:57] Yeah, I’d love to. You, you know, still be able to teach people to play? It really depends on kind of where you live. There’s definitely cities where I still have the scene and there’s still people playing. So, you know, it’s always it’s very hard to move to a place and trying to get it started and getting new players, getting people that. And, you know, especially if you don’t have the equipment loaner bikes and things to to really get new players in can be very difficult. So I think as long as I live somewhere where there is a scene, I’ll probably still always got to bike following in some of the guys.
Michael Lee [00:11:28] What does this do for your heart and for your soul?
David Morley [00:11:30] It really just gives me this kind of passionate outlet to one, just kind of forget about everything, take all of my troubles and, you know, put them into this, put them in and try and go faster. It’s also kind of a nice thing to practice as well. Like really work on your own skills getting better. There certainly is a lot of cool bike tricks you can learn to do. A lot of the outlet there for kind of creativity in motion. So that’s really, you know, I think what it does for kind of my soul is that escape, you know, that release of just the world’s a crazy place. Let me go smack this ball around as hard as I can.
Field audio of bike polo game
Michael Lee [00:12:06] Thanks for listening to This Is My Thing. I’m Michael Lee and I produce the show. Thanks this week to Jack Anderson for doing some field recordings. And a special thanks, of course, to David Morley for sharing his love of bike polo with us. If you haven’t seen it already, you can watch some video of David and his fellow bike polo enthusiasts in action on our show page at KUT.org. We’ve got more This Is My Thing coming soon. We’re working on pieces about glassblowing. Pole dancing and barbershop quartet, so there are some pretty fun stuff coming up. Keep listening to hear those stories and more. If you’d like to tell us about your thing and maybe be a part of a future episode, that’s pretty easy to do. Just go to the This Is My Thing show page at KUT.org. You’ll find a form on that page that you can fill out to tell us about your thing. And if you get bit by the filling-out-forms-online bug, well, there’s other forms on the KUT website as well, specifically the one you can fill out to become a member of this station. Members make this and everything we do possible.
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This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
