Tour de Fat - Austin

Pat (the one with the lime on his nose and the owner of the Rio) and Joseph

Joseph

Joseph and Lindsay and Sandy on the far right

Ricky and Martha on the right

New Belgium Brewing Company, located in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is also the town of Jeff and my alma mater CSU, does an event called the Tour de Fat. Essentially, it's a bike parade with a carnival to follow, all benefitting local charities. The mission is to not only raise money for charity, but also to advocate living green, especially by riding a bike instead of a car. They served beer in biodegradable cups and used solar power for their staging area.

I attended one back in college several years ago in The Fort, and didn't realize how big they've gotten since then. This year they traveled to Chicago, San Francisco, Truckee, Seattle, Portland, Boise, Fort Collins, Denver, Durango, Tempe, and, of course, Austin. 

The Rio, the restaurant where Jeff and I worked at for years (original restaurant is in Fort Collins also. They also now have one in Austin, which is why Jeff and I moved here) got a big group together to ride bikes in the parade, in which my friends Joseph and Sandy and I joined. We decorated ourselves in lime green and donned huge foam lime wedge hats. Needless to say, we were hard to miss!

Sandy and Joseph and I met at Sandy's house and rode our bikes down to the park, which was about 7 miles away. We rode in the parade, which was great fun, along with hundreds of other people dressed in silly outfits and some on really cool bikes. I had a great time, but can't say I've been converted to using a bike for all means of transportation. I would've given anything to drive back home in a car instead of riding our bikes back up hill another 7 miles after drinking beer in the hot afternoon sun. Oh, and one huge lesson I learned is to invest in a big wide bike seat! Ouch!

Silly bicycles to try out. Some are really creative!