Tour de Fat is back in Fort Collins. See photos, videos and more from the 2022 event.
Fort Collins’ largest street party returned after a three-year absence Saturday with the return of the Tour de Fat, an annual bicycle parade and party started by the New Belgium Brewery to kick off the Labor Day weekend.
An estimated 20,000 people, mostly in costumes, participated in the morning bicycle parade along Mountain Avenue while bands played in the grass median and spectators cheered and danced. Some even had elaborate pot-luck meals set up on tables alongside the trolley tracks.
“I’ve lived in Fort Collins for 57 years, and it’s a fun event to come and watch,” said Pamela Goodman, who was watching the festivities with her husband and marveling at the creativity of some of the participants.
There was a tandem bicycle with nine riders, pedal-powered floats and bike and trailer combos designed as a street car, old Volkswagen microbus and a variety of other vehicles. There were more than three dozen pirates, at least two dozen bananas and Waldos from the “Where’s Waldo” books and far too many princesses, fairies and wizards to count
One couple went as Aladdin and Jasmine from the popular Disney movie, “Aladdin,” riding skateboards disguised as magic carpets.
The Tour de Fat, which began in Fort Collins but has since expanded to other cities across the country, was canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing Matt Kaufman and Alan Kunish to wait an extra year to debut the old-school, all metal bicycle they had built with two giant wheels and a seat in between for the rider.
Kaufman rolled the wheels with his gloved hands, while Kunish followed on foot, with two guidelines to help steady and steer the contraption and rubber-soled shoes to use as brakes, as necessary. They built it during their free time at work at Forney Industries, using tools and equipment they had available in their warehouse.
“We built this last year, but the Tour de Fat got canceled, so we’ve been saving it outside till this year,” said Kaufman, 56, a lifelong Fort Collins resident. “We’ll see if it stays together.”
It did, and he and Kunish appeared no worse for the wear after completing the roughly 2 ½-mile loop.
“We build something special for this event each year and wanted to do something crazy, but this is the biggest one that we’ve built so far.”
The parade route followed Mountain Avenue, from Howes Street just west of College Avenue, to City Park and back, with westbound revelers on one side of the road and eastbound on the other, giving spectators along the median prime viewing spots. Several participants did multiple laps along the parade route, no doubt waiting for the start of the post-race party at New Belgium Brewery.
The street was closed to vehicle traffic during the parade as were all of the streets crossing Mountain Avenue along the route, with police, paramedics, firefighters and others manning the roadblocks.
Fort Collins police and officials working one of the roadblocks provided the estimate of 20,000 participants.
Others stopped to hang out and dance to the music of the four to five live bands along the route or the tunes a live deejay was spinning near the starting point.
“It’s so great to have this back again,” Goodman said.
See our coverage from Tour de Fat's return to Fort Collins at coloradoan.com. Follow the Coloradoan on Instagram @coloradoan for behind-the-scenes access to events like Tour de Fat, highlights from our reporting and more.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Tour de Fat Fort Collins: See photos, videos from 2022 event
