Bicycling for sport, fun, fundraising at Midnight Classic

The midnight bikers will be out again this weekend. By 10 p.m. Saturday, Poplar Plaza will be full of people, tents, music by Venus Mission and bicycles warming up for the 2011 Meritan Midnight Classic Bike Tour & Lunar Festival.

It's the 12th year for night riders to follow the 17-mile route that meanders around East Memphis, Central Gardens and Midtown.

"We had more than 1,500 participants last year," said Meritan spokeswoman Elise Bone. "The great thing about the tour is it's not a race. It's for people of all ages and levels of ability — the daily rider or occasional rider. There are always a lot of families riding."

The Memphis Police Department and volunteers are stationed along the route to provide security and assistance. "Everyone gets a map," Bone said, "and we have trucks along the route in case there's a breakdown or somebody's tire goes flat. We can bring them back to Poplar Plaza."

This year, there's something new going on during the pretour festivities. There will be exhibition games of bicycle polo and an opportunity for some daring (and well-coordinated) beginners to try it out.

It's derived from the horseback sport favored by the elite around the world where riders use long-handled mallets to propel a ball into the opponent's goal. But it was British soldiers stationed in remote outposts in the late 1800s who substituted bicycles for ponies.

Kyle Wagenschutz, who by day is bikeway/pedestrian coordinator for the city of Memphis, is an organizer and avid player of the sport. "We play hard-court bicycle polo," he said, which developed from bike messengers who, a few years ago, started playing a version of it between deliveries. "It's an extension of inner-city bicycle culture," he said, "by people who wanted to have more fun on the bike."

"The version we play in Memphis is on a hard court surface about 110 feet by 60 feet," he said. It's a three-on-three game that uses street hockey balls and homemade polo mallets, and the first team to get five goals wins the match.

It's a decidedly physical endeavor, but the relatively small court keeps things from going too fast. "We have safety gear such as gloves, shin guards and elbow pads, but the game is not about being rough and tough and creaming your opponent but finessing the score," Wagenschutz said.

"We'll have exhibition games at Poplar Plaza, but we'll also invite people to play beginner-oriented games," he said. "Bike polo definitely takes a well-developed sense of bike handling and balance to play. Even more experienced rides may have trouble holding a mallet in one hand, steering with the other and hitting a ball into a goal."

When the polo matches are done, people will get ready to start the tour at midnight. Participants should be off the roads by 3 a.m., but most people are back between 1 and 1:30 a.m., Bone said.

Proceeds go to Meritan, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that finds foster families for children with special needs, does job retraining for seniors, training for the visually impaired, offers disability and homemaker programs and provides skilled nursing and physical/occupational therapy.

2011 Meritan Midnight Classic Bike Tour & Lunar Festival

10 p.m. Saturday at Poplar Plaza Shopping Center at Poplar and Highland. Bicycle tour is midnight-3 a.m. Registration through today is $40 for adults and $20 for children under 18, college students and military personnel. Ride night registration is $45 and $25. For more information: (901) 766-0658 or midnightclassicbiketour.org.

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