http://miamibikescene.blogspot.com Songs: King Khan & BBQ Show - Love You So Jacuzzi Boys - Island Ave (demo) Hunx and His Punx - You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll Hunx and His Punx - Good Kisser ------- The 1st annual South Florida Call To Cranks has come to an end. For the most part it was a great Memorial Day weekend, though the torrential downpours really put a damper on things at the velodrome on Monday . Here's a a brief rundown of the weekends events.. Super Smash Up Alley Cart (Saturday 5/23) 75 registered racers with about 65 completing the race. The majority of the participants were from Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Pete, & Tampa. I believe I was the sole rider from Miami, no surprise there. The alley cat began at 4pm from Holiday Park, it started raining right at the start. The race was 15 miles long, stretching just west of I-95 all the way east to Ft. Lauderdale Beach Blvd. An excellent tour of FTL in wet conditions with 10 checkpoints in total. The check points consisted of the following: stenciling a t-shirt at Blackbook Stencils, swallowing a little cup of ketchup, releasing all the air from your bikes tube and then pumping it back up , track standing, running in the wet sand at the beach, dizzy bat, and more. There were 5 bridge climbs, a fast descend through the New River Tunnel, a few railroad track crossings, semi-strong head winds on A1A & Las Olas, and ample rain. There were lots of flat tires & incidents early on in the race, thankfully everyone was for the most part okay. The race was very well organized and because of this it was very enjoyable and a success. Jared & Kelli really put a lot of effort into the check points, prizes, maps, etc. The finish line was at Radio-Active Records where the awards ceremony was held, shortly followed by the South Florida premiere of Death Pedal. Race Results: 1st Jeremy (Ft. Lauderdale) 2nd Dave (Ft. Lauderdale) 3rd Rydel (Miami) Points Winner : Randon (Clearwater) First Girl : Karly (Ft. Lauderdale) Best Costume : Amanda McCleod (Boca Raton) First place prize was a pair of Velocity B-43's courtesy of Keirin Cycles. After the film premiere we then headed over to Jeremy's (Thriller Crew) for an after-party w/ a keg, fireworks & pizza! Most of us closed off the night/early morning at Poor House. Bike Polo Tournament (Sunday 5/24) I had a rough Saturday night/Sunday morning so I made it to the polo tournament very late, 6pm to be exact. Fortunately I was able to catch the final game. There were 10 polo teams in total throughout the day. The final polo game was between teams SRQ (Sarasota) and XXO (FTL). Congrats to Jared & his team (XXO) on the win. Final score 5-3. The Quick & the Dead Sprints also took place at Holiday Park while the bike polo games were still going on. The races were almost finished before park security shut us down. I believe there were 3 races left to go. Taylor (Tampa), Dave (Ft. Lauderdale) & Anthony (Orlando) seemed to be in the finals. Velodrome BBQ (Monday 5/25) This unfortunately was rained out. Most cyclists were able to ride for about 2 hours before heavy rains ensued. The riders were able to squeeze in some Flying 200's before the track got wet. There was no BBQ and everyone went home damp. Here's the Flying 200's results: Dave 13:45 Max 13:95 Michael 14:47 Taylor 13:51 Richard 13:53 Jeremy 13:57 John 15:01 Bob 14:35 Mike 13:70 Devin 17:17 James 15:90 Richard G 14:93 Alex G 13:70 Mike C 15:84 Stephan ? Erik 17:50 Carol D 17:78 Cathy 21:46 Wes 15:23 Overall it was an excellent weekend. The weather really could've been much worse, at least we had 2 out of 3 days without a terrible storm. And to my knowledge there were no major injuries throughout the weekend. Thanks to Jared & Kelli @ Heart Of Gold for organizing this extravagant bicycle weekend. All the sponsors (see flier) for their support. Ben & Mikey for the Death Pedal premiere, Headset Clothing, Jeremy for the hospitality, Steve at the velodrome for his help with the Flying 200's, and to anyone else who contributed to making this weekend awesome. The video captures some of the weekend's events. There is no actual footage from the alley act, it's mostly post-race crowd shots and gets a bit more interesting around the 4 minute mark.