Cycle Ball is a nice sport that combines football and cycling in a unique way. It’s been around for over a century, but it’s still regarded as an unusual sport, especially in America.
Cycle Ball is played by two teams made up of two players riding around a wooden field and trying to shoot a ball through their opponents’ goal, using their heads, or the wheels of the bikes. It may sound strange, but it’s a pretty simple and fun game to play. A match consists of two seven-minute halves, in which players must keep their feet off the ground to avoid a free-kick, and try to score more goals than their adversaries.
While defending the goal, one of the players is allowed to use hands, but you’d be surprised how hard the ball is usually struck in one of these games, so using hands doesn’t help much if the ball is well directed. The bikes used are optimized for Cycling Ball: the seat is positioned over the back tire, they have a single gear so there’s no breaking and players can easily move backwards, and the handlebars point straight up. Still, players require quite a lot of riding skill to keep their balance and possession of the ball, at the same time.
It never ceases to amaze me how human beings can adapt and become so good at strange activities. Theoretically we are supposed to be mostly mental animals, but some of the unbelievable physical feats some of us are able to achieve is a true wonder - this is just one small example, but there are so, so many.
Now, if we can just fix Global Warming we should be good to go for another thousand years...
Last Edit: Aug 22, 2013 13:45:22 GMT -5 by Perfs14
The ball itself is usually filled with horsehair and has a diameter of 17 or 18 cm. It can travel at up to 60 km/h. The feet may not kick the ball If a player touches the ground he is not allowed to continue. He must cross the base-line (next to his own goal) with the front or back wheel of his bike and then continue with the game.
The sport has long been popular in Germany, the acknowledged world leader in indoor cycling. In fact, in Germany, indoor cycling is more popular in the junior ranks than the outdoor versions of the sport. Today, ten thousand indoor cyclists hold competitive licences in Germany.
I apologize for the delay. At last I managed to finish this article. I tried last night but were unable to upload your pictures. Today I started at 7 pm and finished now about 4 hours later.Finally good, everything is fine we say here in Greece.
Gordon Lee
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I like stamps for the thrills, chills, screams, and laughs.
Posts: 2,658 Location (Country): Roanoke, Texass USA
Post by Gordon Lee on Aug 22, 2013 15:29:10 GMT -5
Greetings Mr. ten1951 . I must lead a very sheltered life. I, too, have never heard of such a thing. Thank you for taking the time and making me aware of this sport. Thanx also to Mr. Perfs14 for providing a film clip. . Respectfully,
Cycle ball was invented in 1893, by a German-American names Nicholas Edward Kaufmann and was played in public for the first time but in next has disappeared from USA. By the way simultaneously with cycle ball world championships, as you can see in postmarks, conducted world championships in artist cycling.
I haven't heard of this sport either but thank you for bringing it to our attention. Mike
Collecting Canada, US, UK, Ireland, Germany, France & Austria. Also collecting some classic era stamps of some British Commonwealth Island countries and topicals like WW2, Capt. Cook, Horatio Nelson.
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