Seattle Beer News posted a quick blurb about New Belgium‘s Tour de Fat today. I wanted to take a moment to echo the call to bike-o-maniacs in the area.

Tour de Fat is a celebration of bikes and beer, but its meant to call attention to a much larger concept. Years ago, New Belgium started Tour de Fat with the idea of ridding the earth of automobiles and replacing them with hip bikes. Of course, the disdain towards the automobile stems from several concerns, including depletion of natural resources, pollution, energy consumption and all around hatred for all things oil – at a time when the BP spill is in our minds.

New Belgium’s goal was simple: get people to trade in their car; we’ll give them a bike. This is the central theme behind Tour de Fat, which now has 12 stops across America.

This is from the site:

It’s when one fortunate soul hands over their car, title and keys to the Tour de Fat altar in exchange for a bike. Not just any bike, a New Belgium, fully-loaded, hand-crafted, Fort Collins-built commuter bike. There’s 13 Tour de Fat stops – surely one near you – and that’s 13 car/bike trade opportunities. It’s about weaning yourself off the petroleum teat. It’s about becoming a better, sexier person. It’s about rediscovering the cultural thrill of public transportation.

So, while Tour de Fat is a truly a party, celebrating funky and interesting bike contraptions and the enjoyment of beer – its also a burial for someone’s car. People wishing to be considered for the big trade-in, can find more information about it on their website.

This concept is of great interest to your writers at Beer Blotter. We recently traded in our car for bikes (and a little public transport of course). Its been one of the best decisions we ever made. It maximizes our beer consumption experiences, limits the risk that a catastrophic accident could happen, and keeps us in good shape. Consider the shift. At least, it saves you insurance and gas costs.

We hope to see you all at Tour de Fat. Its an amazing event, going down all day on July 31, 2010 at Gasworks Park in Seattle. The event concludes at 4 PM and will be followed by an after party at Brouwers Cafe, where you will no doubt get to drink some amazing New Belgium ales.

See you there!