Tour de Fat

an update

The wild and wooly New Belgium Brewing Co. bike festival and freak show known as Tour De Fat was in The City of Big Shoulders last week to benefit West Town Bikes!


Over the last eight years, Tour de Fat has captured the imagination of thousands with record-setting parades, eye-popping entertainment, death-defying contests of bike skill and precision, and, of course, New Belgium beer.


The show opened with a costumed bike parade, celebrating the power of the bike. Born in Ft. Collins, Colorado to increase awareness and participation in biking as a sustainable form of transportation, Tour de Fat has grown into a national rite of passage for cycling advocates and bon vivants alike. New Belgium’s philanthropic cycling circus helped 26 non-profit organizations in 2007 and raised more than $245,000.


Tour de Fat also left as small an environmental imprint as possible by composting and recycling waste. The waste diversion rate goal for this year is 95%. All musical acts perform on a solar-powered stage. All decorations are made from recycled materials. Trucks and transport utilize B100 and all vendors operate off the grid.


At the Team Wonderlounge, participants joined Team Wonderbike, New Belgium’s bike commuter advocacy program. Team Wonderbikers pledge to commute by bike, not car, as often as possible. Currently, 11,000 people have pledged not to drive 9 million miles in the next 12 months.