Tour de Fat Returns With Bikes, Brews and Tunes Galore

By Sponsor in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 1, 2015 5:00AM

On Saturday July 11th Tour De Fat is rolling back into the Windy City! Gather up your friends, family and neighbors for a festival of freak bikes, food trucks, bands, eclectic live entertainment and stellar beer to help raise funds for local Chicago bicycle nonprofit West Town Bikes. The daylong festivities are free, with all proceeds from beer and merchandise sales, along with parade donations, going towards making Chicago a better place to ride a bike. Despite last year’s torrential rain and storms, over 5,000 people came to the festival and raised more than $32,000 for West Town Bikes.

Tour de Fat will be kicking off the daylong festivities with a giant bicycle parade in celebration of the power of the bike, encouraging everyone to embrace their inner-cyclist while riding through the city streets as a rolling carnival of cyclists. This bike route is designed for people of all skills levels, and everyone is welcome and colorful costumes are encouraged. After the group ride, the stages will heat up with Fire Leopard, Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, and Reggie Watts, transforming the Palmer Square festival grounds into a celebration unlike any other! The festival also features a celebration of the inspirational car-for-bike swapper series in which brave souls hand over their car keys as a commitment to commute by bike.

Adults and kids alike can ride funky bikes, eat delicious fare, relax in the grass, and participate in games and activities such as a “Thousand Person Dance Contest”, which will determine the winner of a 2015 New Belgium Cruiser Bike. Everyone 21 and older can sample new and classic favorites from New Belgium, including the brewery’s flagship brew, Fat Tire, new year round brews like Slow Ride and classic summer session brews like Blue Paddle and Snapshot, plus selections from the Lips of Faith series. Lips Lounge tappings this year will include La Folie, Hop Tart, Pear Ginger Beer and Carnie Blood.

Visit the full site to follow Tour de Fat’s Windy City adventure.

This post is brought to you by New Belgium Brewing