Earlier this morning a buddy of mine sent me a GIF from that video above. The GIF had no title, no description, and no source, so needless to say I my mind was reeling at what in the hell I was watching. After some Internet sleuthing it turned out that the sport I was watching is called Cycle Ball, and if there were an official ‘Hipster Olympics’ then cycle ball would be the flagship event. Cycle Ball’s street name is actually ‘radball’, which although it’s a German word, when used in English it makes Cycle Ball about 10,000x more awesome. The game is played 2 on 2, with riders on top of fixed-gear bicycles (no brakes). The riders can only use the bike wheels and their heads to move the ball around when on offense, on defense they can use their hands. In the tutorial below one man claims that Cycle Ball is similar to football (LOLOLOLOLOL), yet according to Wikipedia, Cycle Ball’s closest relative is ‘bicycle gymnastics’, which leads me to believe that this is the penultimate hipster sport.
By the way, here’s that GIF I was talking about before:
That video above is a little old, but it’s the source material for the GIF you see directly above. Below is another video from a more recent Cycle Ball event back in May, featuring Swiss riders versus whoever the hell’s acronym is ‘ALL’ (any guesses?). This clip is no less insane:
Still not clear on just what exactly Cycle Ball is? Here’s a tutorial I found titled ‘Cycle Ball for Beginners’, the quality of the video is garbage but you can read the subtitles and get an idea of how the game is played:
I have to say, I’m SHOCKED I haven’t seen this played on a concrete court here in NYC yet. Maybe the word on Cycle Ball really hasn’t gotten out yet, or maybe this sport’s just so asinine nobody’s wasting their time playing it. That said, I’m curious what you bros think about Cycle Ball and whether or not you’d be interested in playing it OR if you’ve heard of Cycle Ball before. Answers down below in the comments!