It was interesting to note the presence of the Geekhouse polo bike at this year’s NAHBS: it shows that builders are aware of the increasing popularity of bicycle polo. Focale 44 is the fixed gear arm of a French BMX company who came on the scene with a series of modular looking off-the-peg bikes in 2009, and this is their contribution to the sport of bike polo.
Polo is an age-old aspect of our culture that, along with bicycle speedway, grass track racing and cyclocross, has existed in the background and is enjoying a resurgence thanks to the renewed interest in fixed gear culture. Focale 44’s Polo Bike is the essential extension of their range into polo: a tidy frame, a refreshing lack of branding with a distinctly French sense of style. It’s running a short 28/17 gear ratio, with a 1” stem, narrow risers, a 48-spoke wheel set and one hell of a laid back seat post to enable the quick revolutions required on the court.
Thankfully, the pictures of the Focale 44 Polo Bike tell a thousand words, thanks to the eye of Benoit Guerry—one of the world’s foremost motorcycle photographers. His work has been seen numerous times on the pages of Bike EXIF, and he is one of the driving forces, along with Vincent Prat, behind the French motorcycle blog, Southsiders MC.
