The 12th annual Bicycle Blues & BBQ festival in Clear Lake starts at 5:00 pm tomorrow evening, with three blues bands and a variety of barbecue vendors in Clear Lake’s City Park. On Saturday, there's bicycle racing, more barbecue and blues and, new this year, the brew fest. Twin Cities-based band Armadillo Jump, described as a dance band, starts the music tomorrow night,  followed by The Blue Rooster, a polished rockabilly, alternative country and smooth south Texas soul band.

Friday night’s headliner, Tweed Funk,  features horn-fueled, Memphis-flavored blues, roots and soul. This Milwaukee six-piece soul-blues revue is fronted by Joseph “Smokey” Holman, who recorded under Curtis Mayfield in the early 70s, and has been on the cover of Big City Rhythm & Blues Magazine, as well as on Elwood’s Bluesmobile, Dan Aykroyd’s radio show.

Bike racing begins Saturday morning, with a seven-mile time trial starting and ending at Lions Field north of Highway 18. Barbecue and criterium races begin at 11:00 am from City Park, and continue all day, with a break at 2:30 pm for free races for kids under 10.
The Brews on the Beach craft beer festival is 1-4 p.m. on North Lakeview Drive, with VIP event at noon; general admission tickets are $30. Tunes resume at 8:30 pm with Kansas City-based Nick Schnebelen Band. A veteran of the family blues band Trampled Under Foot, in 2008, he won the Albert King Award for best guitarist at the International Blues Challenge.
Also on Saturday, there's  a workshop on the construction of the Diddley Bow, an influential single-stringed American instrument, at 2 pm, and an acoustic blues class is at 4.

The weekend ends with Sunday’s road race at 10 a.m. and awards at 3 p.m.