Cycle ball

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cycle ball is a sport, similar to soccer, only the competitors play while riding bicycles. Each of the two people on a team rides a specialized bicycle with no brakes and no freewheel (a fixed gear bicycle). The ball is controlled by using the bike and the head, except when defending the goal.

First made public in 1893 by German-American Nicholas Edward Kaufmann, the sport's first World Championships were held in 1929. Cycle ball is popular in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Closely related to cycle ball is artistic cycling in which the athletes perform a kind of gymnastics on bikes.

The most successful players of cycle ball were the Pospíšil brothers who won the world championship twenty times.