On Saturday, May 31, New Belgium's Tour de Fat rolled into DC's Yards Park. The traveling festival is a celebration of beer and bicycling with 10 stops across the country in 2014. This year's festival featured plenty of beer, a bike rodeo, numerous bike-related interactive displays (bike wheel kaleidoscope, anyone?) and multiple stages with all kinds of entertaining acts.
Notable about Tour de Fat is that all of the proceeds from beer and merchandise sales and donations from the bike parade go to local charities at each stop. The DC area's beneficiaries, according to a press release, were the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) (http://www.waba.org), Black Women Bike DC (http://blackwomenbikedc.
All in all the event raised $54,000 for these organizations (up from $19,000 in 2013). The massive increase in funds raised coincides with a much larger attendance. 7,000 attendees came out this year, up from 2,500 last year.
One factor separating Tour de Fat from other beer festivals is how clearly the whimsy and folly of the brewery's organizational culture shines through. Well-executed but also goofy, Tour de Fat was like being at a non-creepy carnival with much, much better beer. Kudos to New Belgium for an event well-executed for a good cause. Check out some pics from the event below!
Created with flickr slideshow.
