PHOTOS BY CHUCK LIDDY - cliddy@newsobserver.com
Cyclists head off on a 4-mile bike ride as the first Tour de Fat comes to Durham. The parade and festival to encourage bike use was held at the American Tobacco Campus and attracted an estimated 500 riders.
DURHAM -- Three area nonprofits worked together like spokes in a wheel on Saturday to make the first stop on the national Tour de Fat bike-and-beer festival go smoothly.
The event, organized by New Belgium Brewing Co. of Fort Collins, Colo., started with a bicycle parade along a 4-mile route through downtown Durham. If you think cycling shorts look funny, you should have seen some of the parade costumes, a colorful assemblage of thrift-store junk and out-of-season Halloween accessories. For a summer day, there was a lot of lamé and tulle on display.
"We're chickens," said Cass Chisholm of Cary, who attended the festival with her riding buddies, Kristin Saintomas, also of Cary, and Wendy Brackett of Raleigh, all with matching feather plumage on their heads. The trio trains together twice a week and rides in charity events as Team Brick, sporting matching jerseys.
The brick, Saintomas said, symbolizes their solidarity and their lack of speed.
"It's the least aerodynamic thing we could think of," she said.
More than 350 people participated in the parade, which included tandem bikes and at least one unicycle.
The Durham event kicked off Tour de Fat's 14th festival season and marked its first appearance in North Carolina. The traveling festival celebrates cycling, eco-awareness and Fat Tire beer, named for the wide tires used on mountain bikes.
Nonprofit groups in each community on the tour mobilize volunteers to help with the event, and they share the donations received during the festival as well as the proceeds from the sale of beer, T-shirts and other merchandise.
The Durham event benefited the Durham Bike Co-op, which teaches cyclists how to do basic maintenance and repair on their bikes and redistributes used bicycles to people who might not otherwise be able to afford them; Triangle Spokes Group, which raises money all year to purchase new bikes for needy children at Christmas; and the N.C. Active Transportation Alliance, which promotes cycling, skating, running and walking as practical and healthful ways to get around.
Matthew Kowal, wearing an unusually tall top hat in his role as festival host and "sustainability coordinator" for New Belgium Brewing, kept events moving by directing the crowd to performances at various venues starring his traveling troupes.
The festival adheres to the eco-ethos, using solar power for the sound staging and compostable cups and plates for the beer and by-the-slice pizza.
On the festival grounds - the grassy area between the Durham Performing Arts Center and the American Tobacco Historic District campus - children played with oversized thingamajigs made from recycled bike tires, propane tanks and bits of reclaimed plastic.
The Triangle has a strong cycling community and a busy riding season, with enough events nearby from March to October to keep cyclists busy. Still, riders say it can be risky to go from four wheels to two on area roads; they have been cursed at, had objects thrown at them and been threatened with baseball bats by people in cars on local roads.
"But it goes both ways," said Gus Gustafson of Raleigh, who attended the festival with his wife, Colleen, and sister-in-law, Jenny Mangum of Durham. The three ride together often but try to use roads less traveled, for their safety and to avoid frustrating drivers who might get caught behind them. They especially like to ride on the deserted weekend streets of Research Triangle Park.
Normally, they wouldn't brave the streets of downtown Durham, but Saturday's hour-long parade had a police escort and offered individual riders the protection of being in a large group.
Plus, Colleen Gustafson noted, it ended with a cold beer.
"We like to call it training," she said, raising her biodegradable cup.
