X2
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Sudden perpendicular stops
Ok, Ive had this done to me a couple of times & last time I about wanted to bite a tendon outta someones neck...
Im jamming with the ball downcourt, Im aware of my path-weaving in & out-juking defenders & then outta nowhere I get cut off & braked in front of with a back wheel to my front...with predictable consequences=yardsale. I dont mind if I get denied by an angular defensive move, but this seems highly not cool. This is a reverse T-bone no?
is this defender skidding sideways into your front? if so, that momentum on their part is what would define it as a 'reverse t-bone,' in my opinion.
Yep-Crashing me out.
this is still not a reverse t-bone, but it does sound illegal. I think that the skidding of the back wheel into you is the clearest route to explaining this as a violation (9.3b),
but it also pretty clearly sounds like your opponent was riding in a "reckless or otherwise dangerous manner" (9.3d), as long as it's true that eating serious shit was an unavoidable consequence in this situation (as you've asserted earlier in this discussion).
below, nookierick from como declares that it is impossible that this situation couldn't have been addressed with bike handling/court awareness (instead of crashing), but
without seeing it, I don't think there's any way for the internet audience to know for sure.
Is this defender skidding sideways into your front? If so, that momentum on their part is what would define it as a 'reverse t-bone,' in my opinion.
Yep-Crashing me out.
so if someone blasts ahead of you on your left and makes a right (not skid, but turn) in front of you, catching their rear wheel on your front, taking you down in a full speed shoulder breaking bike flippin crash,
that's legal?
so if someone blasts ahead of you on your left and makes a right (not skid, but turn) in front of you, catching their rear wheel on your front, taking you down in a full speed shoulder breaking bike flippin crash,
that's legal?
I think it is in Como
so if someone blasts ahead of you on your left and makes a right (not skid, but turn) in front of you, catching their rear wheel on your front, taking you down in a full speed shoulder breaking bike flippin crash,
that's legal?
it is legal.
You could have braked. You could have turned. You are in charge of where your front wheel is.
This is the classic discussion that arose when Ben did it to Johnny in that one video clip.
The fact remains that if you make this illegal, you are defining a "right to a line" or intended path that is simply not defined in the rules. You have no right to your movement in a hardcourt bike polo game. No one has to yield to your intended path, ever. That's why it's so much fucking fun.
You need to anticipate these people doing this and account for it, because they are well within their position as defender to claim a space of pavement that you want to have. This is one of the best things about this sport.
It's just going to force you to get better.
exactly.
in pickup i try to avoid doing this to my buds, partly cause i'm a nice guy, partly cause i don't want to fuck up my rear wheel. but it does happen, usually because i can't always know if someone is watching where they are going.
in competitive polo i'd say it's a legitimate tactic (causing people to crash into you), although i think a lot of us are actually pretty nice (and concerned about our rear wheels) so we try to avoid it.
I don't think that a ban is necessary, but surprise roadblocking a rider at speed is reckless and thereby already considered to be illegal in the NAH ruleset. Desperation is no excuse for endangerment. A player needs a safe option, whether that is to change direction, hit the brakes, or dab, and suddenly crossing a player's line does not allow for that option.
If a player has the jump on you, you need to get faster or play smarter. Exploiting holes in the rules that seem to allow for violent or dangerous play like this cheapens the game.
Exploiting holes in the rules that seem to allow for violent or dangerous play like this cheapens the game.
Only cheapens the game if you don't laugh at the person you just juked. Like this:
surprise roadblocking a rider at speed is reckless and thereby already considered to be illegal in the NAH ruleset.
ORLY?
Which are you debating, Kev? From where I stand, putting yourself in the path of a moving object that cannot change its momentum before it collides with you is reckless. In the rules, there are numerous mentions of reckless play being cause for action from the referee, be that a penalty or a warning. I need to get this straight before my next NAH tournament. It seems that there are a few distinct opionions on this, and I need to know how helpful the officials can be or how much inconsiderate, petty aggression to expect.
It is your claim that contact with the road block is unavoidable that I disagree with.
If someone is crossing your path, you need to be aware of their positioning. I don't see how someone can simply appear in front of you. A lot of this game is quick interpretation and decision making. I don't see why this case is different.
I agree with nookierick. Look at it this way, if I'm bombing down the court so fast that I can't stop or steer around a block, then * I * am the one who is being reckless, not the blocker. There are no 'lines' in hardcourt.
A stationary block is different from a mobile defender that suddenly becomes static in your path. Sprinting up the court with the ball and not avoiding an approaching or stationary defender is careless, but suddenly putting yourself in the path of the ball carrier is either side swiping the front wheel or what I earlier referred to as surprise roadblocking, depending on your inertia. I consider both of those to be reckless actions on the part of the defender. Make no mistake, I put a lot of responsibility in the hands of the ball carrier, but in this instance, I feel that the move is dangerous and unacceptable. Finally, I haven't tried defining a line in my arguments. All I am advocating is consideration for safety.
Finally, I haven't tried defining a line in my arguments.
while you may have not have tried defining 'line', that is exactly what you're talking about right here:
Sprinting up the court with the ball and not avoiding an approaching or stationary defender is careless, but suddenly putting yourself in the path of the ball carrier is either side swiping the front wheel or what I earlier referred to as surprise roadblocking, depending on your inertia. I consider both of those to be reckless actions on the part of the defender.
"path of the ball carrier" call it direction of travel, future position, imminent space time occupancy- it's all the same thing: You want right of way, you don't want someone to cut you off.
And this idea of 'surprise roadblocking' is a bit strange to me too. If the defender is sufficiently out of view in order to surprise, then they're behind the ball carrier. If they are putting themselves in the path of the ball carrier, then they are in front of the ball carrier and in their field of view. Where's the surprise?
Please allow me to clarify. Yes, I am talking about the future position of a player, but I am not at all trying to say that they are entitled a right of way. It wasn't my intent to debate entitlement to space because I feel like it would turn out to be cyclical and futile, especially in the scope of this topic. I referenced a defender putting their bike in the path of the ball carrier to describe a specific situation. The important part in the second quote is the nature of the maneuver. Forget the phrase 'surprise roadblocking.' The word surprise was supposed to mean 'sudden and unexpected', like if your friend reached across the front seat of the car and jerked the wheel, not 'undetected,' like someone sneaking up behind you and saying boo. Instead, consider the maneuver to be the defender intentionally causing an unavoidable collision, which is different from crossing a players path with the intent to cause them to change their direction/speed. The latter is tactical jockeying for position, while the former falls squarely under the heading of "riding in a reckless or otherwise dangerous manner," from my standpoint. I hope that you are able to see where I am coming from on this. I appreciate the struggle for space in polo, but I believe that a sudden, perpendicular stopping of a bike in front of another player at speed is a very specific circumstance that is unnecessarily dangerous.
Nick, I can see your hypothetical situation, why can't you see mine? When an attacking defender is on a path that crosses the desired path of the ball carrier, yes, the ball carrier is responsible for their own safety. I am also in favor of leaning into the ball carrier to guide them off of their desired path, for what it's worth. Are there not situations where the attacking defender unexpectedly and radically alters their trajectory in a manner such that the only possible outcome is a messy collision and a yardsale? Has no one ever spontaneously turned 90 degrees, grabbed a handful of brake, and sent you and your bike tumbling? Why do you think that this is acceptable in a bicycle based sport played on paved surfaces where the only required safety equipment is a helmet and capped bar ends? I believe that their is a line between tough defense and reckless aggression, and I recognize that you can hit your brakes or dab when a situation gets too dicey for you. I also recognize that you don't have to put yourself in a dangerous situation, and that doing so negates your ability to bitch when it goes wrong. What I am having a hard time coming to terms with is how you can play devil's advocate for some bush league tactics.
With the way that the game has been progressing, I think that we are lucky to have the safety record that we do. I get that polo comes with a certain level of risk and responsibility, but I don't think that acknowledging that should give your opponents carte blanche to risk your personal well-being. Again, the amount of mandated safety equipment does not align with the amount of aggression that a lot of people seem willing to tolerate. I would like to see the finesse and intelligence sides of polo be progressed rather than see it be turned into bike lacrosse.
Of course I see your point and I agree with a lot of it. I wouldn't pull this move and I agree that it's a dick thing to do.
"I believe that their is a line between tough defense and reckless aggression"
So then -- where do you draw the line? Ref's discretion? I just think that if you can't come up with a hard definition of when it is illegal and when it isn't, then it shouldn't be a rule at all. For me to support a rule, I need a hard set line between just-a-dick-move and a penalty and I don't see a way to define this instance in that manner.
Do you?
I think that you hit some pretty significant points on the head in this response. We'll agree that it's a dick move and not one that we would pull, regardless of legality. I will add that it is firmly in a gray area of the rules, and that we could probably kick out a few more thousand words on the topic. Let's work from here with that understanding.
In rules debates, it is common for someone to take a stance and then challenge others to prove them wrong. In this situation, that would be very difficult with the rules as they are. The "Bike-to-Bike" section of the ruleset is comically vague, and the "General Court Behavior and Physical Contact" section basically says, "Don't be a dick." That brings us squarely to your question of where to draw the line in crafting a clear ruling on the subject. There are subtleties about how contact occurs and what is permitted that simply can't be put to words in a ruleset. Part of this is due to their intricate circumstances and the tedium of putting each of them to paper, but most of this unfortunate problem is due to the ever present desire of players to find holes in and push the boundaries of the written rules. Mind you, this isn't a knock on the players. Winning is the reason that we play, and no one can be blamed for playing up to the letter of the law. As much as I would love to see players not exploiting gray areas at the expense of others' safety, we know that such a case is impossible when the stakes are high. That is where I see the referee being extremely significant. Obviously, you want the rules to be clear and concise in their descriptions of acceptable and punishable behavior, but in the end, I think that it must come down to the referee to carefully and objectively decide who is being a dick, who is being reckless, and who is being careless when the rules can't decisively place blame on one player. I know that this is not the answer that people want to hear, but consider this: How is it that you and I both independently think that suddenly, perpendicularly stopping your bike in someone's path is a dick move while we debate whether the rules allow or prohibit it? Isn't that a judgement of recklessness? There is a gentlemanly code of conduct at pick-up, isn't it precisely our expectation of the referee to uphold that at tournaments when there is more at stake and we are apt to take liberties?
On this issue, I think that the play is dangerous and should be penalized because to me, it is evident that the defender is trying to cause an unavoidable crash. I'm coming at this from perspective of wanting to be convinced that this tactic is a necessary part of the game, which I feel that it is not. At BM2, Dusty and Cody consistently found ways to cleanly and precisely strip (incredibly skilled) players of the ball and shut down their progress toward the goal without bringing them down in a heap or putting them at unnecessary risk of injury. I do not understand why we keep trying to find ways to legitimize petty tactics when we could be learning to play better defense.
I do believe in some type of defensive foul rule. A defender can go too far with blocking the attacker. There are situations where the attacker is picking up a ball from behind, not looking forward, not prepared for the dumb fool who put themself immediately and quietly in front of an obvious charge.
There are good safe ways to block that do not involve contact. Get parallel. Sure there are no lines but that's often safer and better.
The guideline I would follow is *could the attacker have avoided contact?* In jinxy's case we'd probably agree she could see it coming and it's on her to be ready for the person to come across the front wheel. Other times the defender is being a dick and asking for a collision. I'll tell people it's going to be painful for everyone if they keep playing the get in my way when i'm not looking defence.
WOW! I really did not read all that^ but I dont understand whats wrong with tough defense? why dont both players just pick their heads up and pay attention to what the other is doing?
If at any point you are looking down and pedaling and aren't aware that someone is converging on you... wo woa woah!!! ALMOST TOOK POLO TOO SERIOUSLY.
*sits back down*
what makes cutting off an opponent and braking in front of them facing the same way from riding in front of them intersecting and hitting your brakes causing them to t-bone you?
Umm, the ruling on this is pretty clear to me: You have to give every player the opportunity to avoid a crash. Otherwise you're in the wrong (often labelled as a dick move by the crowd), this runs true regardless of whether you are a defender or an attacker.
Despite what's written above it's fairly common place for attacking players to ride into others simply by being unaware of their own position on the court relative to the position of others, a classic example being when you make a turn whilst the ball is hanging around your rear wheel (you look to the ball to collect it and fail to keep track of where you're riding/turning).
The referee decides who caused the crash and often the benefit of the doubt is given to the ball carrier.
There should be equally hard penalties dished out to attackers that t-bone a planted defender, or fail to look up whilst charging up court. Often this isn't the case as the crowd/ref can't see the "opportunity" that was lost. For example: it's easy to sin bin a last-man defender that t-bones a breaking attacker, but is much more difficult to sin bin an attacker that keeps blindly turning into other players with their eyes transfixed on the ball.
At the end of the day the attacker is not "looking" to cause an incident as they have the ball, whereas the defender is looking to get the ball/stop the attack (perhaps at any cost), this is where the "benefit of the doubt" ruling comes from, simple.
Good refs will "see" incidents well before the crash happens, bad refs will only pay attention to the player on the ground post-crash and rarely understand that the attacker can sometimes be the one at fault.
It doesn't matter how you re-word the rules for the time being, it's reffing experience and a keen eye that counts.
In response to the OP: If you had your head up and the defender made the move too late (unavoidable crash) then I'd sin bin the defender, issue a ball turnover and reset the game. If you failed to have your head up or the defender had been planted in position in good time then I'd issue a ball turnover against you and consider sin binning you for reckless play (or just a warning) and then reset the game.
is this defender skidding sideways into your front? if so, that momentum on their part is what would define it as a 'reverse t-bone,' in my opinion. however, if somebody sets a pick or just plain short-stops you, then that's your fault for not stopping in time. it's a defender's job to be in your way. my 2 cents.