The Pit in Roosevelt Park

Although it's technically polo, any sport which starts its rulebook with "Don't be a punk ass biatch" can't be considered a gentleman's game. NYC Bike Polo is a loose league of fixed fiends and kids who didn't make their college's ultimate frisbee squad come together to exemplify everything that is fine and free about the city of big dreams. The sport's fast, furious, and doesn't maim horses. So take your crap bike and homemade mallet out to the LES on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights -- or Wednesday night if you're a rook -- and try to act a little gentlemanly.

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In the heart of New York’s Chinatown is a perfect place called The Pit. The hard, rectangular playing surface is recessed several feet below street level. Inside its walls, everyday traffic sounds are muted. Young men on road bikes circle one another with heads down; sometimes they collide. Long mallets swing and strike at the ball that clatters between their wheels and ricochets off of the walls. Bike polo is a rough game, but it is also elegant. It's the intersection where ballet, croquet, and demolition derby meet with a resounding thwack! Despite all that, to lean against a railing and watch—just taking up space with no particular place to go—is the most peaceful thing going in this busy corner of the city. Taxis, markets, restaurants, bars, and hundreds of fascinating people are just over my shoulder, waiting for me. But I'm not quite ready to turn my head yet.

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