The year 2008 is a sad one for Flagstaff. Tour de Fat will no longer be coming to its most successful location. Tour de Fat has descended upon Flagstaff for eight consecutive years, advocating sustainability and promoting the bicycle as the preferred means of transportation. The Tour starts Saturday morning with a bike parade through downtown (costumes required), and fills the afternoon with burlesque style shows, live music, and the occasional bike jousting. Of course the necessary social lubricants produced by New Belgium Brewing CO. (NBB) may be purchased at a reasonable price. This year however, NBB has announced that not everyone has “come to move the bicycle to the forefront of transportation... [and] instead have focused on pushing revelry to new heights... this has put all stakeholders in a potentially dangerous situation.” I find it amazing that the consumption of alcohol may induce people to “push revelry to new heights”. Apparently people that were ejected for bad behavior were so disrespectful that they actually jumped the fence to get back in! How could this be?! Don’t most drunken, misbehaving people quietly walk away after being removed? This kind of behavior must never be seen other places that alcohol is served. Rather than taking responsibility for taming the beast they created, NBB decided to execute it.
I find it strange that NBB would want every attendee of Tour de Fat to be there with the intent of “moving the bicycle to the forefront of transportation.” It seems that if every attendee was already a bicycle advocate that the idea of the bicycle as the primary source of transportation would not be spread. The tour would erode into services for The First Church of Bike.
NBB isn’t entirely to blame; the city of Flagstaff is no longer entirely hospitable. Apparently other events such as Tequila Sunrise and Made in the Shade, which also result in public intoxication, are somehow more acceptable, maybe because they are not as popular and occur at times and in locations that will not be observed by passing tour buses. I thought, naively it turns out, that Flagstaff was a fairly liberal progressive city.
Proceeds from Tour de Fat went to Flagstaff Biking Organization (FBO) and the Northern Arizona Pride Association. This represented more than half of FBOs annual budget. This year however, FBO may not have the budget to continue work on the urban trail system, supply bikes to those in need or maintain local trails. NBB has promised FBO continued support through grants and the like, but these will never measure up to the thousands of dollars lost.
Ultimately Flagstaff has lost a valuable piece of its culture. Although it was apparent that a new venue was needed, rather than find solutions to the issues encountered, the city of Flagstaff and NBB have decided to part ways. The void left behind will be a hard one to fill.
2 comments:
I agree whole heartedly with what you are saying. I am pretty upset that they canceled tour de fat before i even had a chance to have "fun." I didn't know all the stuff about FBO's budget, but knowing that now it makes me more upset about the situation. Do you think public intoxication was the real reason? Do you think they will bring it back or replace it at all?
You make some good points regarding the seemingly illogical nature of NBB's actions. For the past two years since I've lived in Flag I've had to work on the day of the event. I'm sad that I won't have the opportunity to experience the parade and festival firsthand.
Oh, by the way, I like that you have created some links in your sidebar...I was going to suggest that everyone do this either with other class members' sites or ones independent of our group...nicely done!
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