Scumbag Cup

This weekend our former One Hour comrade, Justin Swain, hosted the Scumbag Cup. Five races total over two days, plus a scavanger hunt. The first four races on Saturday would count to qualify for the final race on Sunday.

The morning started off on a great foot with the weather being perfect as Chris and I rolled up to Kristen at the Spring Garden st/Kelly Drive turn off to take numbers for the time trial race. It was a pretty standard race so the only amusing parts were when two people veered off the course and went the wrong way.

Next up was the Alleycat.

The start of this race consisted of Baby Joey ordering all bikes locked up against a wall beneath the Chestnut Street Bridge and taking up a bike lock key collection.

Several of the messengers took the opportunity before the race started to prove thier worthiness as scumbags by peeing behind several dumpsters.

With directions to file into a small walkway tunnel under the bridge and to crouch down in emergency position, Baby Joey clipped all the keys into one massive unit and hung them from the wall on top of the bridge.

With a "One, Two, Three....GO"! Everyone made a bee line for the stairs to the top of the bridge...everyone except one really short straight edge fella who had handed over a spare key.

Was it smarts? or Sobriety?

You decide.

At this point I decided that I needed to use the bathroom and the best place to post up would be at 818 South st. Tara was manning the check point and there was some debate on what task we would make the couriers do. Cleaning the bathroom seemed the most appropriate since it had just been determined that the after party would commence at thier house later that evening.

The last race of the evening was the Figure 8 Criterium around City Hall and Love Park at Midnight. If there was any idea that was a bad idea, this was it. There are only a few outcomes that could transpire from two dozen couriers, racing as fast as they possibly could through moving traffic in a figure eight around City Hall and Love park, and one of those things would be blood...lots and lots of blood. I could already visualize the skulls across the pavement as the faster couriers would intercept with the slower ones at the intersection. At lap two, half of the racers had dropped out, after a near miss involving a car and Baby Chris. Unfortunately I was looking in the other direction trying to get a shot and missed the excitement but when I looked up I could see a very nervous looking Baby Chris coming straight for me.
At least he hit me, instead of the car.
Most bystanders took to "corking" traffic which resulted in the Transit police pulling over two riders and putting them in handcuffs.
According to Transit Police, it is perfectly ok to arrest someone NOT on transit property and they also informed me, by way of tackling me off of my bike, that I was not allowed to take photographs of them "arresting" people. I also might point out that Transit Police do not have any jurisdiction to arrest anyone that is not on transit property. They did however, seemed to be quite upset when someone pointed this out to them and proceeded to put that person in handcuffs as well.

Luckily everything worked out and the actual Police were probably too busy on a Saturday night, to be bothered by a dozen messengers trying to kill themselves, to even bother showing up, so they released us and off we were to 818 for the after party.