Tour de Fat is a traveling celebration of “beer, bikes and bemusement” organized by the employee-owned Fort Collins brewery New Belgium and taking place in almost a dozen cities around the USA throughout the summer (next stops are in Denver, San Diego and Tempe).
This week (on August 30, 2014), Tour de Fat Fort Collins happened – bringing together 25,000 people to ride their bikes in the parade, wear colorful costumes, drink beer, watch bands and other performers… and tell us how cute our dog Whiskey is (sorry, couldn’t help it… she really is cute).
According to a New Belgium blog post, $80,000 were raised for local biking nonprofits. We tried to do our part by drinking our fair share of Ranger, Fat Tire, Shift and the new Tour de Fall beers.
The video I put together is not a comprehensive overview of all that went on that day. It skips all the bands on three stages, all the nice people I met and fun conversations we had and that crazy delicious sandwich from the Jax stand (and the disappointment that the Moe’s stand was already out of food). But this should give you an idea what a fun, sunny, colorful and beer-induced event this was.
The bonus of attending the Tour de Fat in Fort Collins for us was to jump in the Poudre River for a refreshing dip and then ride home on the fantastic bike trails along rivers and creeks with the view of the Rocky Mountain Foothills and a random Kingfisher just hanging out. Quite different than making your way home from the Atlantic Antic in Brooklyn or the Easter Bonnet Parade in Manhattan…
The upbeat song is the instrumental version of “Honey Trap” by Jason Matherne.
