Boards

Real hockey and roller hockey rink boards are made of a polyethylene sheet good known as "marine board" or "sea board". It's just a U.V. stabilized PE product, so it doesn't rot in the sun. You could buy a relatively thin sheet of it and put it over plywood boards to get a little more bounce, or you could buy thicker material and use it as the board itself.

St Louis roller hockey rinks use both systems. They play the same as far as I can tell. In my experience, having the right ball for the ambient temperature makes more difference on the rebound than wood vs plastic boards.

Chicago Bike Polo 2003-2008

St Louis Bike Polo 2008-now

It is all about the money. Plywood walls need a lot of framing inside to get a good rebound. The PE board that Lucky is refering to would help. For sure any board is better than the fence. We had to take the boards down in Ottawa but are going to get the city do a reinstall with a permanent set up. Saftey and liability is the first concern with our city folk so they insisted that nothing was permanent. Plus we wanted to keep the lumber. In Toronto there was not enough $$$ to build what was planned. But given the resources it worked out.(we left that there) If you can get the boards to have zero give you can get the rebound your looking for. It really is a issue of how solid the strucure is and not the material covering it. Coroplast would work in a pinch too. If you have the money check out www.backyardrinks.com. For about ten grand you can get the real dasher boards.

We call our boards the curb.

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Moooooo!

We just played in a tennis court and used masonite connected with zipties. It sort of worked out. Corners were rounded at least and it kept the ball from going in a lot of gaps. Cost us less than $50 for two courts. It is a little hard to transport though... considering doing the same thing, except plastic for the next one. We used them for a recent tournament over here in Orlando. We normally don't use anything, but figured since it's a tournament, we should try to keep the ball in play as much as possible. Corners suck.

I like our court, especially that we have boards that work really well.

check it.

http://legitbikepolo.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/allstoncourtsmall.jpg

Edges.

We've developed a pretty neat system here in Melbourne over the past week, based on input from Victoria (BC) and other North American inspiration... and not to mention. LEGO.

(stop press, I wrote this last week, and now I've made a handy PDF... enjoy)

I'm sure there's way more of you out there who are super advanced past this stage... But I think this could really help those people out there who are having trouble finding space in their cities that is: smooth, level AND enclosed...

Here's the lowdown...

In short, you can build yourself edges to completly contain a court. But it's not about building the edges once and then having to lug around bits of wood in a trailer (or car!) every week.

What you'll need:
A drill with a 10mm bit (or equiv 7/16?)
A hand saw
A bag of cable ties (preferably releasable)
http://www.cabletiesexpress.com/releasable_cable_ties.html

And...
A pile of scavenged wood, planks etc, of various lengths and thickness.
Lots of short lengths or a few lengths.
A short piece of chain
a combination padlock

At every end of each plank, drill a 10mm hole 2cm in from the end, 2cm in from the side of the plank. Drill another hole 3cm above (2cm in and 5cm high)

____> ~ ^
|o o |5cm
| |4
| |3
|o o |2cm
|____> ~ <_____|1
2cm

We did this last Saturday and scavenged in laneways and found a surprisingly large amount of wood in a short time.

_____
| o \
| \
| \
| o \
|__________\

With some shorter pieces of wood, cut pieces 20cm (10 inches) long and cut them diagonally in half to create small triangles. Make dozens and dozens of these triangles.
Drill each one 2cm in and 2cm high in the corner, drill another hole 2cm in and 5cm high from the flat end.

Now using your zip ties, zip the whole lot together (see photos)

You could even use string, just like tying shoelaces.

Add more support triangles to any part of a plank by drilling more holes and attaching triangular blocks.

This will give you a flat continuous edge. you can create curved edges by placing your shorter segaments near corners.

After your initial setup workshop you could either:
equally divide all your 1m/3foot lengths between players.
stash them in the bushes

drill/holesaw a 1 inch hole at the end of each plank and lock them all to something nearby, and share the combination amongst players

Stash the longer heavier pieces and take the nicer pieces home.

Stash planks and triangles at multiple courts and everyones pieces will always work together.

Section off an entire court in the middle of the desert, or fill that annoying gap with a 'playable edge'

You could equally divide the triangles amongst players or just scatter them in the bushes nearby... make so many that you'll never go short.

I'll have to admit, last week, I was really thinking that we'd need to go and buy some nice wood, but this system worked so well that not only now am I on the look out for ski poles and plumbing pipe wherever I go, now I'm obsessed with straight pieces of wood, and less obsessed with finding a nicely contained space to play in!

Now I can concentrate on finding flat, smooth level uncontained spaces rather than contained or partially contained spaces that are either not level or smooth.

It's astounding that it has taken so long to finally get around to this, it's so simple I am kicking myself. We have been chasing the ball for so long!

With a few more weeks of drilling and cutting more wood in between games and making sure regular players have a few dozen cable ties in the bottom of their bag, I reckon we'll be set for summer!

--
urbanbicyclist.org

Has anyone set up boards that can be easily put up and broken down on a regular basis, such as for use in a parking lot? That's what we've been playing on in DTLA, and it's about time we set up a perimeter to keep play on the court - but we wouldn't be able to leave them up between games.

Ride, bake, polo, repeat.