Jenny is our she-ro!

Posted under Fort Collins.
Comments: 1

Ok…so we just crushed Ft Collins with Bike Love, and now it’s Denver’s turn.

Some of the basics…you can already see the basic itinerary, but you should know…

1)  the parade will leave at 10am…don’t be late! Basic Route directions

Leave City Park South on St. Paul to 11th. 
  
Take 11th West to Cheesman Park and do a lap around the park.  Folks
can shake what their mommas gave them at that park if they want to take
a break and party. 
  
Leave Cheesman going North on Franklin St
 
Go West on 16th down to Sherman and go pedal around the Capitol.
  
Down Capitol Hill (careful crazy bikes) to Lincoln.
  
Take Lincoln North through Downtown area to 20th.
  
Take that all the way back to City Park.

2)  We will be giving away a bike…al you have to do is show up and get a wristband.

3) we are gonna trade someone a new Sweet Commuter bike for their car.  We keep the car, they keep the bike.  forever.  pretty neet.

4)  All the beers you buy are for charity…so even if you don’t drink them, you still get credit.

5) The show will be amazing…just come and enjoy.

More to come…but for now I hope this helps.

Posted under Denver.
Comments: 4

Oh yeah! Let’s do something useful with this 1997 Saab convertible that’s eating up my garage space. I need more room for bikes! I just moved to Denver from the Bay Area and got myself a house 3.5 miles from my work place just so that I can ride my bike to work. Along the way I can pick up my mail, stop by the bank, pick up groceries (and Fat Tire), and even swing by REI if I need bike stuff. So I’m really trying to live a biking lifestyle. I’ve been riding an older hybrid Bianchi with a beefy rack on the back for the panniers, but I think the angles are wrong for me and it’s been doing a number on my 50-year old knees. So I think I need a new/different bike with different/better attack angles so I don’t blow out my knees and so that I can keep on pedaling forever!

Janine W.
Beer-brewing Geologist who rides bikes

Posted under Durango.
Comments: 2

I have owned my dear automobile since 2000. She is sleek and beautiful. When I lived in Los Angeles, though I developed distaste for driving at an early age, she allowed me to escape the city mayhem for long road or mountain bike rides on the coast, in the desert, and across the mountains. Yet while great for long trips, I have always chosen to live within 6 miles of my place of work, because I do detest a driving commute.

Now that I live in Boulder, Colorado I don’t even seem to need my car for trips outdoors anymore, because everything I need is within biking distance. I walk to the grocery store or take my 1950’s Shwinn Hollywood with cargo baskets. I run a few blocks to the trails at Sanitas Mountain. And I ride the bus to Denver for nights out on the town with friends. My 1.5 mile commute to work is all downhill on the Shwinn so my work clothes don’t even get soiled on the way. The uphill ride home invigorates me after a day at the desk, so I’m ready to enjoy the afternoon. And my Toyota just sits in the driveway. And sits. There must be a better use for all that metal and rubber.

I’ve been meaning to sell my car on craigslist and use the money to buy a commuter bike that is a bit easier to ride long distances, and that will encourage me to continue my bike commute even on the coldest days of winter, when I’m feeling sick, when I have large and/or heavy packages to pick up, multiple errands to run, and when I know I have long distances to go with physically exhausting terrain. (The Shwinn, while my darling, is a rusty single speed that I rarely take up large hills nor ride on icy terrain etc, so my distances feel limited). Then, just yesterday, I discovered the Car Swap. While I do make the Tour de Fat a must experience event annually, I somehow missed the fact that you are offering to trade the car for the bike. This is ideal, as I’ve been prepping myself for just such an occasion for quite some time. Yes, I think it is time to say goodbye to petroleum based transportation, and hello to dedicating myself to a year of pedal-powered locomotion.

Over the past year my husband and I have been planning a number of means to a local-based, carbon reduced lifestyle.

First, location. We chose to move from the mountains (a 20 minute car commute I detested, there were not even any options for public transit) to the center of the city in Boulder. Check. This meant neither of us would ever really need to get in the car to go to work. (Though we often do, and it does make us guilty! Time to get rid of the guilt!) Our house (built in 1890) is even rated as 20% more efficient than a new code-built home due to energy efficiency improvements completed last year. So we’re polluting less through home energy use as well.

Second, fuel. While I am more than happy to trade my Toyota for a wonderful commuter bike, we do have a love of independent American travel to out-of the way places, and purchased a westfalia campervan this year. But we find petroleum burning unacceptable, so we are almost done converting the gasoline engine to biodiesel, and plan to make biodiesel in our shed with waste vegetable oil from local restauraunts. We have three friends running their diesel cars on straight vegetable oil, so we’ll be working together and it will be a great lifestyle challenge to make the time to make our own, renewable, fuel for those occasional weekend adventures in the woods.

Third, food. (body fuel). I realize the importance of buying local and organic. But I am not satisfied sitting there not contributing my part. We have some waste-scape areas of my yard that I plan to convert into the optimum biodynamic gardening spaces. I spent the last year prepping my compost, and this fall I have dedicated towards preparing the soil and planting crops for the winter. The goal is not just food for a self-sustaining diet, but following the advice of John Jeavons at Ecology Action, growing crops in proportions that, when composted, replenish the soil year to year. By starting small and adding growing areas annually, in five years I plan to grow enough food on my land to sustain myself and my husband for a year. I really would like to be an example of how it is possible to live in this self-sustaining manner in the city, with less-than ideal growing conditions and without large, gas and water guzzling mono-culture farms.

Fourth, Choice. Even with the above three goals accomplished. It all comes down to a matter of choice. How often will we fly out of the country to experience other cultures, or to the coast to see my parents? When will our old habits get the best of us and we hop in a car instead of biking a short distance, potentially with no excuses such as bad weather? I don’t know the answer to this. But what I do know, is receiving a bike from New Belgium and making a public pledge in front of the Denver Tour de Fat with a commitment to choose my bike for a year will greatly aid my chances. And perhaps it will motivate some others to do the same.

Cherlyn S.

Posted under Denver.
Comments: 1

If you weren’t one of the thousands who participated on bike at New Belgium’s hometown Tour de Fat, then you might have been one of the 10,000 who logged onto the live stream at newbelgium.com.
No?

Well, here’s a taste of what you missed:

Posted under Fort Collins.
Comments: 1

A big shout out to the 7,000+ costumed fans and freaks that rallied in the mack-daddy of all Tour de Fat’s yesterday! Rather than repeat what this good man, aka Josh the Rasta-tire-ian wrote, I’ll just send you to his bikin’ blog. Check it out for a great photo wrap-up. Long live the long parade of bikes!

-Your friends at Tour de Fat

Posted under Fort Collins.
Comments: 1

For twelve years me and my car, the Pooch, have been inseparable. We have traveled the Midwest, the mid-Atlantic, the West, and points in-between. She has been my only car and I her only owner.

For several months I have been debating the merits of buying a new car, one that handles the mountains and difficult terrain better than a Pontiac Sunfire. But when it comes down to it, I don’t want to deal with car and insurance payments, gas purchases, and finding a parking spot on the street in front of my apartment (which is often nearly impossible). I thought to myself, why not go car-less? I could give it a try for at least a year to see how difficult it would be to solely rely on my own body to get me around, mass transit, and carpooling. And then I remembered the Tour de Fat, and its bike trade.

So, I, a native Michigander who, in a former life, spent 6 1/2 years car commuting to downtown Detroit, submit my application for the Tour de Fat car/bike trade.

Thanks!
Jenny B

Posted under Fort Collins.
Comments: 1

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Posted under Fort Collins, Uncategorized.
Comments: 2

Hello world.

The TDF crew made it back to HQ safe and sound after 6 long and very continuous weeks in travel. We were greeted with high fives galore from the NBB Mothership, and they seemed genuinly pleased to see us. This pleasure could have derived from our extended absence, but more likely they know the Fort Collins Tour De Fat is next in que, and everyone around here has been looking forward to September 6th, 2008(the exact date of the upcoming TDF) since September 8th, 2007 (the exact date of the day following last year’s TDF). But before ol’ Juice Box jumps the gun (an awesome track and field referance (topical, seeing as how the Olympics just ended)) I should send salutations to the lovely and pronunciation conciuous people of Boise Idaho.

It only took a few minutes of being in your fine town (and I truly mean that, Boise is a fine town, I love it. It seems to have everything; nice people, lots of bikes, bars that are fun to hang out in, a great food co-op, a fantastic record store, and Buck Hunter Safari (the arcade game) behind everydoor you open) before I learned my lesson, and man did I learn my lesson.  The proper pronunciation of Boise is BOY-C, and you people are serious about that, as you should be, proper pronunciation is of utmost importance.

When I was first corrected I was saying to the very nice man behind the counter at the hotel “man, Boise (pronouced at the time BOY-Z) seems like a real cool place to be” and immediatly he responded “Boise (pronounced BOY-C, and said sort of slowly and deliberatly so I would see the error in my own pronunciation) is a real cool place to be, there is a ton of stuff to do, and great people to do those great things with, and on top of all that, there is a great many places to play Buck Hunter Safari, if you are in to such arcade games.”

I thanked him for his insight, and continued to check into my room. Blown away at his civic pride, and newly aware of the proper way to pronounce Boise.

And how about that Tour De Fat.

It was fun, and outragous, and barely hotter than the sun. The stars were aligned, and everyone enjoyed every minute of it, especially me. The bike pit was huge and surrounded by a white picket fence, and i got some sweet polaroids. The bands were off the hook, and we all got to enjoy the Sprockettes last Tour De Fat show of 2008. Those women are great, the fury of all that pink and black is truly a force.

Boise you know how to party, and paired with my love to party, I imagine it is not the last time you will see the Juice Box. Thank you for the memories, and as the venerable Bette Midler once said “Boise, (with the proper BOY-C pronunciation (Ms Midler is a smart and classy woman)) you are the wind beneath my wings”.

Loving you all,

the Juice Box

PS. Fort Collins get ready to share a wonderful day, I am looking forward to it.

Posted under Boise.
Comments: 1

Posted under Boise.
Comments: none