Cycle ball, also known as "radball" (from German), is a sport similar to football played on bicycles. The two people on each team ride a fixed gear bicycle with no brakes or freewheel. The ball is controlled by the bike and the head, except when defending the goal.
The sport was introduced in 1893 by a German-American, Nicholas Edward Kaufmann. Its first world championships were in 1929. Cycle ball is popular in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland. The most successful players were the Pospíšil brothers of Czechoslovakia, world champions 20 times between 1965 and 1988.
Closely related is artistic cycling in which the athletes perform a kind of gymnastics on bikes.
Famous quotes containing the words cycle and/or ball:
“The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The world was a huge ball then, the universe a might harmony of ellipses, everything moved mysteriously, incalculable distances through the ether.
We used to feel the awe of the distant stars upon us. All that led to was the eighty-eight naval guns, ersatz, and the night air-raids over cities. A magnificent spectacle.
After the collapse of the socialist dream, I came to America.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)