St. Cago Polo Works Bike Polo Mallet Heads

Hardcourt bike polo is largely still sorting things out when it comes to equipment, and mallets are no exception. While the vast majority of players use aluminum ski poles for shafts, heads vary widely player to player and city to city. Most are variations on the theme of a 2-3″ outer diameter plastic-like pipe, much of it somewhat strangely ruled by local plumbing and building codes and what then ends up in the hardware store. If it’s out there, someone has tried it with many settling on HDPE as a preferred material as it is resistant to cracks, wears predictably and is relatively lightweight. Commonly available as pieces of uncapped municipal gas pipe, some players prefer a capped end for a more positive striking surface. Of the various cap solutions fusing materials together under heat and pressure has proven to work long term, even if it isn’t the easiest way of doing things.

St. Cago Polo Works is one guy in his kitchen working with rented pipe fusing equipment, custom HDPE caps and various lengths of HDPE pipe to create some of the nicer capped mallet heads out there. At this point, all of them are being made from 2 3/8″ outside diameter HDPE pipe, with single and double capped versions available depending on player preferences. The shown double capped heads were purchased back in August and have seen quite a bit of use since. The heads each certainly show wear, but at the same time appear to have plenty of life left in them. No cracks are apparent, and the fused joint is still solid even if it is drilled out for weight in a few spots. Of some 300 heads out there there are about a dozen reports of the fusion joint failing, with an informal replacement policy if it pops off within the first few weeks of play. Equally important, the hole that the shaft enters has not deformed over time, leaving the head tight. After 3-months of solid play these heads are holding up better than any others I’ve yet tried.

Due to the nature of the St Cago Polo Works operation, mallet heads are available somewhat sporadically, seemingly coinciding with larger scale tournaments in the Midwest and beyond. The most recent batch of heads is sold out, but due to demand and was overwhelmingly of the single capped variety and not drilled at all, leaving the end user the ability to mount that head at any offset or angle so desired. Expect to pay $13 or so per head plus shipping charges, a small price to pay considering how hard it can be to find HDPE pipe in some locations in the first place. Go to this thread on bikepolo.ca for more information about ordering, and to get on the list for the next batch with delivery estimated in time for the St. Louis Dead of Winter Polo Lock-In.