Tour de Fat: Drink beer, improve Austin

Bike and beer festival raises money for three local organizations

By Ian Dille
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, October 16, 2008

Scarlett Arbuckle's 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass mysteriously drained the battery every time she turned it off. The windows didn't work and the interior was cluttered with storm debris. She took it to a junkyard to get a new window, but it was mistaken for scrap and another car was dropped on top of it. "It was a vehicle you'd only drive if you really, really had to have something to carry things with," Arbuckle said.

So in 2007 Arbuckle sent a video (available on YouTube) about her car to the organizers of the Tour de Fat, a vaudevillian bike advocacy festival promoted by the New Belgium Brewery. In it, she convincingly argued why she should win the Tour de Fat's car-bike swap, and redeem a brand new commuter bike in return for her beat up Oldsmobile. She won, and at the culmination of last year's festival was called up to the Bicycle Revival Stage. The emcee, clad in a white sleeveless suit and absurd sunglasses, asked for Arbuckle's keys and car title, then presented a brand new two-wheeled ride to her.

This Saturday, another lucky Austinite-in-need will ride home on a hand-built New Belgium cruiser bike. In its fifth visit to Austin since 2000 and its final stop on an 11-city trek across the U.S., the Tour de Fat brings a day of bicycle and beer drinking fun to Fiesta Gardens, on the shores of Lady Bird Lake. "Austin is a progressive town that's embraced cycling and happens to love craft beer too," says the Tour de Fat's self titled "event evangelist," Chris Winn, aka the "Reverend C. Ballyhoo."

The Tour de Fat begins with a parade, featuring an assortment of costumed cyclists and creative bicycle creations that aren't entirely utilitarian but definitely look cool. Once the riders return to the event site, the kegs are tapped and the party starts in earnest. Six varieties of New Belgium beer will be available for purchase with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting three local cycling organizations: the Yellow Bike Project, the Austin Cycling Association and the Austin Ridge Riders. In 2007 the Tour de Fat raised nearly a quarter million dollars for 26 different cycling nonprofit groups nationwide.

The free festivities and entertainment will include performances by Scott Nery, a pancake juggler; the Denver-based folk band, Paperbird; and Mucca Pazza, a punk marching band. Crowd members can participate in a slow race, requiring cyclists to pedal as little as possible, and a funeral procession — dubbed "Carpocalypse Now" — for the former vehicle of the car-bike swap winner. Finally, the Tour de Fat will award the cruiser bike and donate the car to charity. Attendees can pedal away, knowing they made Austin a better place for bicycles ... simply by drinking beer.