Denver Tour de Fat Extravaganza
Waking up early on a Saturday morning, means you’re waking up for a good day. I didn’t NEED to get up as early as I did on a Saturday morning, but the anticipation of the day, wouldn’t let me sleep any later. IT’S TOUR DE FAT DAY!!!!
We arrived early to City Park and finished setting up our tent for the day. Set up on the south side of the festival grounds, we were in prime real estate to get see a TON of de Fatters. B4B ON!
Tour de Fat seems to hire their entertainers from the book of Entertainers You Would Never Expect to Entertain a Festival Crowd. And rightly so, Tour de Fat was launched by the Rhymanese Twins. Two guys, wearing an oversized sweatshirt and jeans to hide their Siameseness, perform bicycle and safety related raps while pumping up the crowd with their beats for for the cruise around Denver’s streets. Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock even dropped the final beet (literally he dropped a giant beet), to start the ride. Stereo systems better than the one in my living room and more Wonder Woman costumes than I could count, took off in front of our vantage point. See you at the tent, friends!
The crowd started drifting in around 11 as the delicious New Belgium kegs were being tapped, the music began thumping and the party began!
I’d participated in the festival’s activities for years in the birthplace of New Belgium’s Tour de Fat, Fort Collins, and then here in Denver as well. But I was excited to be able to see the day’s events play out from a different view point.
I absolutely LOVE the people that follow New Belgium and drink it’s glory. I’m stereotyping, yes, but it’s OK cause it’s a positive stereotype. Chatting with people genuinely interested in your crazy dream all day, is quite the confidence builder. Because the really weird thing is, they fully support you back cause they are just as crazy! This led to constant interaction the entire day at the B4B table as word of our journey spread throughout the crowd. Handshakes were thrown out left and right and high fives to every fan wearing a baseball cap or jersey were delivered if you happened to walk by.
One of the most intriguing persons I met was Kirby. Because Kirby can help a B4B dream come true. Kirby does conversions for diesel powered engines to then run on cooking oil. With the amount of travel that B4B will be doing (over 10k miles), we realize the carbon footprint we would leave in our trail with our storage bus following us throughout the trip. Minimizing this impact is a top priority of B4B and will save us a lot of money and a lot of emissions in one giant swoop!
We want to thank everyone that stopped by our tent and picked up a flyer, a sticker or bought a t-shirt. To follow our latest happenings, check out our blog, website, Facebook and Twitter updates. And thank you especially to New Belgium for putting on another AWESOME event that you allowed us to be a part of. Hopefully one day, B4B can be a sponsor of a part of the magic that happens at a Tour de Fat Festival. Until then… back to work!
