Eugene recently hosted a tournament that drew teams from around the Pacific Northwest.
The sport? Bike polo.
Players met under the Washington Jefferson Bridge for Eugene’s eighth annual "Polo Trolls Tournament."
Bike polo is played like regular polo, except riders are on bicycles instead of horses.
The local club almost went under during the pandemic, but was revived by a small group of enthusiasts including Keara Hallberg, who moved to Eugene from Minneapolis in August, 2020.
Hallberg connected with locals playing other cycling sports, made a meeting time and place at the tennis courts at Washington Jefferson Park.
“Everyone came, I think, because no-one else had anything else to do, because it was COVID," she said, "and people wanted to be outside and move their bodies and still find a way to be social within that, which, bike polo is perfect for that.”
Once they had enough numbers to play, the players who had drifted away came back to the club.
“Within months we had a huge club, a solid place to play, the neighborhood was really excited about us," Hallberg said. "We were barbecuing every week… it basically turned into a social club. Which is rad, and we’re still, like, riding that high.”
Their current location, on the basketball courts under the freeway ramp, is covered and lit, meaning weather and time of day are non-issues.
Jason Luke, the main organizer of the Polo Trolls event, claims there’s no other location like it for bike polo in the entire country.
There are some cons, however. The site is first-come, first-serve, which means the club has to compete for space with basketball players. It is also in need of some TLC: the court was set to be repaved in 2020, but COVID meant priorities shifted elsewhere and the repaving was put off. But even with deferred maintenance, there’s no better space in the city.
In the future, Luke said they hope to work with the city on expanding the width of the space under the bridge so they could put two courts side by side. If they can do that, they could host regionals–or even nationals.
