[autoviewer id=”423″ width=”600″ height=”600″ ]

By Ron Cox

Thousands of bikers and friends converged on Key West to compete in the 43rd Annual Phil Peterson Key West Poker Run on Sept.18-20. Starting in Miami the riders found card stops at various tonsil wash emporiums along the way, ending in world famous Key West.

Late Friday and all day and night on Saturday and Sunday, vendors set up shop on Duval Street, offering everything from cowboy hats, biker jewelry, patriotic t-shirts and flags wall hangings and my personal favorite the folks selling LED pasties. Lots of photo ops and samples could be seen. We found a leather shop off Duval St. selling a lot more than vests and saddlebags; unfortunately we still have figured out how to use some of the leather accouterments!!

The nightlife has to be seen to be appreciated. The Hog’s Breath Saloon, Sloppy Joe’s, Irish Kevin’s and the wonderful Fat Tuesdays. Fats offers about 15 different flavored “slushies” spiked with grain alcohol (proof unknown). For the more adventurous there’s the rooftop nude bar and especially for the ladies there’s the mechanical bull riding contest at Cowboy Bill’s. The winner usually ends up wearing her shoes!!!!

And to wrap up your day a stop at Mallory Square to catch breathtaking sunsets. Street performers and vendors run the length of the area. We settled in at El Maison de Pepe for some delicious mojitos and waited for the sunset. After a few of these we didn’t care if the sun set!!!!

I almost forgot. This was a charity run with thousands of dollars being raised for the Diabetes Research Institute and the Kew West Sunrise Rotary Club. Typical biker event, lots of fun and for a good cause too!!!!

Bike Show Winners: Congratulations to Peter Gonzalez for taking Best in Show and Cartel Baggers for winning Best Pro Shop.

And the Winners for the Poker Run are:

1st Place: Gary Ervin from Port St. Lucie with 4 Queens, 10 high. Won $1,000.

2nd Place: Jeff Carberry from Myakka City with 4 Jacks, 8 high. Won $500. He also won the Texas Hold-em game with 3-Fives Takes $6,000 cash.

3rd Place: Jeff Payne from Jupiter with 4 jacks, 5 high won $300.

4th Place: Glenn Davis from Homestead with 4 Tens, Queen high won $200.

5th Place: Sherri Hermanowski from Waterberry, Vt with 4 Tens, 7 high won $100.

Furthest Traveled was Roxane Brown from Bremeston, Washington won $200 Peterson’s Gift Card.

Oldest Tee Shirt Contest winner with a 1988 was Richard Goldman from St. Augustine, Fla won a $300 Peterson’s Gift Card.

50/50 cash raffle winner was Aldon Piere who won $600 cash.

By Lulu

The parking lot of the Flagler Imaging Center in St. Augustine was a sea of pink when I arrived. Pink T-shirts, pink boas, pink hair, and pink beards…pink, pink everywhere. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. Cities everywhere use this as a month to raise funds for research, free mammograms, etc. But just focusing on the disease and the need for women to GET THEIR MAMMOGRAMS is in itself a reason to get out and ride…in pink! This was the 7th year of this ride and it was extremely well attended. The after the ride party included horse drawn carriage rides which is part of the St. Augustine culture. There was live music, raffles, food, vendors and a silent auction. This was by far one of the most organized events I have witnessed…good work guys from the Unity Outreach St. Augustine.

By Lulu

Bill and Connie McCormick have been huge supporters of local runs for as long as I have lived in the Daytona area. Always on rides for charity and ALWAYS on their bike! Well due to medical problems Bill’s friends threw a ride for them and friends and fellow bikers returned the kindness Bill and Connie have shown others in the past. I know they want to say a huge thank you to the people who rode and to the bars that participated including Scarey Mary’s!

By Billy “Kneecap” Braddock

I’ve always considered November to be one of the more important months of the year. After all, we have four very important days in the month. There’s my birthday, the Marine Corps birthday, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving. The reason I mention my birthday as being important is because at my age there is not going to be too many more. You know you’re getting old when you feel like you’re a gallon of milk that the date on your driver’s license is a month past ”best if used by” and your health insurance policy includes an autopsy. I eat as many things that have a lot of preservatives as I can because at my age I need all of preserving I can get. When I get in discussions about the condition of our country, I have often been quoted as saying “I will probably be dead by the time our country is completely destroyed”. Well, I think it’s happening faster than I thought. Playboy announced the other day that they would not publish any more nude photos. Now, if that is not an indication of the destruction of this country nothing is. I wish I was a teenager again, so I could take my flashlight and my Playboy magazine, crawl under my blanket and read all the articles. RIGHT!! Of course, at that age I knew everything.

November 10th is the 240th birthday of United States Marine Corps. The Marine Corps has participated in every war that has involved the United States. Let’s say thanks to all the active and former Marines. “Oorah” “Semper Fi”.

November 11th is Veterans Day when we honor all the members of the Armed Forces who have served this country valiantly, preserving our freedom and our way of life. I am constantly writing about how bad we treat our veterans. Veteran homelessness is disgraceful. It not only affects those from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but also those who served in Vietnam, Korea and even World War II. Those who served in the Vietnam and post-Vietnam era have the greatest risk of becoming homeless. The number of homeless veterans in America is estimated at over 50,000. Vet homelessness is mostly faced by returning males, but females make up about 8% of the homeless vets. 50% of the homeless vets are between the ages of 18 and 50. One third were in a war zone at sometime. More than 50% of the homeless veterans suffer from disabilities. About two thirds of them have substance abuse issues. I was surprised to learn that we only spend about $154 billion on our vets. This includes veteran’s benefits, medical care, housing, education, training, and rehabilitation. Veterans are at risk for suicide, mental health issues like PTSD, disability, and even unemployment. Our veterans need and deserve our help. $338,300,000,000,00 is spent on illegal aliens each year. Are we stupid? We can thank our Congress for caring more about illegal aliens than we do our Veterans that fought so they could keep spending our money to keep their way of life and so called important jobs.

November 26 is Thanksgiving Day. This year it may be a little bit more important. While we eat drink and be merry we need to thank God that we still live in a country that has not become totally Socialist. We still have the right to protect our Constitution even though our government wants to trample on it. Take time to read and understand the 1st, 2nd, 9th and 10th amendments. These are very important.

Check out my website nobodiesopinion.com for more opinions.

See you on the shiny side of tomorrow.

By Lulu

We kicked off our monthly Twisted Tea/Thunder Roads Bike Events in September at Main Street Station in Daytona. Twisted Tea is our Bike Night sponsor so we had a hot chick playing with fire can’t get any more Twisted than that. Twisted Tea samples and giveaways all night long. Great music was featured by Bath Salt Zombies and as everyone knows Phaedre always has kicking music on their Wednesday night bike nights. $1 beer and great music no wonder the parking lot is always full! As part of our monthly bike event we collect non perishable food for the food pantry and give $50 cash to a lucky winner. One ticket for the raffle per item, some chose to just pay $1 per ticket. We ended up with $151 dollars and 63 pounds of food all of which stayed in Volusia County going to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Special thank you to Sherry Fletcher for collecting the cans and selling the raffle tickets. And to Janet Cater for donating $50 cash! Also the lucky winners gave the money to the food bank too! See our ad for November’s event!!

By Julie Saylor (photos by Pam Stein)

The babes were in full force on Sunday at the Main Street Station in Daytona Beach for the Second Annual Battle of the Babes for the Cure. Proceeds from the event benefitted the Florida Breast Cancer Foundation, who was on hand to give out literature and to talk about the Foundation’s work to eradicate the nation’s second-worst killer of women.

“The theme of the day is Girl Power,” said event organizer, Julie Saylor. “We have female-fronted bands, a woman running sound, a female-led bike run and female vendors, all taking place at a venue run by a woman, benefitting an organization founded and run by women, for a cause that affects mainly women.”

An intimate bike run led by the Chrome Divas started the day off, winding through Daytona to rest for a photo op at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse before returning to the Main Street Station for a day of raffle drawings and music. Female-fronted bands from all over Central Florida rocked the stage all day, coming together to raise awareness and money to battle breast cancer.

The Babes included Suzanne Doane-Williams and Zanband, Wicked Kitty, fronted by Kerry Musser, Zu Crew, led by Melodie McCall Magner, Strut, featuring Lindsey Brown, and Bad Apple with Julie Saylor. The bands were not competing against each other, but rather battling side by side to fight breast cancer. All the bands donated their time and talent to the event, as did Audio Z Productions, Stockwell Brothers Stage Lighting, and the Rockstar Music Foundation, who donated the stage, sound and lighting. Sloppy Joe’s and Piscataway Pizza contributed as well, donating lunch for the riders on the bike run, and businesses from all over the area contributed items of all kinds to be raffled. Daytona Jeep Rental and Evolution Gym donated the day’s grand prizes; a weekend Jeep Rental and a one-year full-access gym membership.

Main Street Station manager Phaedra Lee called the event a huge success, and plans are already being made for the annual event’s 2016 extravaganza. Attendees and participants all had a great time, and next year’s event promises to be even bigger and better!

By Lulu

Everyone loves the Iron Horse Saloon and everyone loves good music. The week before Biketoberfest the Iron Horse Saloon kicked off the fall riding season by bringing in the Razorbacks for a 4 day rock-a-billy music event. Their sponsors J&P Cycles, Politis and Matovina law firm and Tropical Tattoo helped make this 4 day event possible.

By Lulu

First Turn Steakhouse and Lounge in Port Orange have a weekly Tuesday night Bike Night with beer specials, live music and some type of free vittles each week! And if you haven’t tried their jello shots you don’t know what you are missing. Goat from Full Throttle TV series was on hand to play some redneck games which included plungers and toilet paper. You just never know who might turn up at First Turn. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Austin Dillon have been spotted there this year. So ride on in to their Tuesday night bike night for great music and a chance to hang out with really great people who like to ride!

By “Kneecap”

Labor Day weekend is always busy. So much going on and not enough time to cover it all. When Lulu called me and asked if I could cover an event at Bruce Rossmeyer’s Destination Daytona featuring Bill Wharton aka “The Sauce Boss” I hesitated. I never heard of him but then he probably never heard of me either. I was pleasantly surprised. He is said to be the inventor of gastronomic boogie woogie. He plays the blues, classic R&B and rockabilly-flavored tunes while cooking a large pot of gumbo that he hands out free at the end of his gig. He says he has served over 200,000 bowls. It was so good, most went for seconds. If you get a change catch his show you won’t be disappointed.

By Deborah Speicher

The weather is starting to get just a little cooler and a whole lot dryer. That means it was time for the Cotee River Bike Fest. Once again, all of the New Port Richey downtown district roads were closed off to allow motorcycle only parking, additional vendors and an additional entertainment stage. This three day event (October 9-11) was multi-faceted and really did incorporate something for everybody.

Friday night started out with various bands including local favorite, The Greg Billings Band, plus a “Dukes and Dudes” contest. Saturday and Sunday featured more good music in addition to a ride-in bike show, the Harley-Davidson Demo Truck, bikini contest, pub crawl and professional wrestling. There was also a poker run on Saturday sponsored by Fire & Iron Station 43 MC which benefitted the Children’s Burn Camp.

Coupled with great weather and attendance all three days, I would say that this event was a huge success!