Costume-clad bicyclists filled the streets of downtown Tempe on Saturday, as the Tour de Fat rolled through Arizona.

Tour de Fat is an annual bicycle-awareness festival sponsored by the New Belgium Brewing Co., makers of Fat Tire beer. The tour brought thousands of Tempe residents, their bikes and their most absurd-looking costumes to Tempe Beach Park for a day of environmental and bicycle awareness.

The festival, which looked like a hybrid of a Phish concert, the Tour de France and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” let participants compete in events, watch bands, show off their bikes and drink beer.

Chris Winn, New Belgium’s self-proclaimed event evangelist, played host to the thousands of bicyclists and beer lovers on the festival’s main stage.

Winn took the stage wearing a white leisure suit, an overgrown beard and a top hat. He was flanked by two men wearing red mock-tuxedos, shorts and top hats, looking like masters of ceremonies at a circus.

The trio announced competitions and events, ranging from a funeral procession for a car to a slow-ride competition, where grown men wearing pixie wings and rainbow wigs attempted to ride their bikes across 30 yards of stage, as slow as they could, while a full brass section dressed in choir robes played the Rolling Stones’ “Time is on My Side.”

The conclusion of the festival was a ceremony for an ASU student who donated her car to a nonprofit organization and was given a new bike by the New Belgium Brewing Co.

The woman vowed to use only her new bike and public transportation for an entire year. Efforts to reach her for comment after the ceremony were unsuccessful.

Winn said everything about the festival is environmentally friendly, from the towers of audio equipment powered by a mobile trailer with solar panels to the beer cups made from corn.

“Those cups you’re using aren't trash; they’re compost,” Winn told the crowd. “These cups will be used to feed future generations of corn.”

Winn directed the crowd to take their refuse to one of seven “compost offices,” located within the grounds and to “put the corn in the hole.”

Winn said the message New Belgium wants to promote is not anti-car, but pro-bike.

“We know that it’s impractical for people to stop using cars altogether,” he said. “People need cars for work or groceries. What we’re saying is that when you need to return a movie to Blockbuster, which is right down the street, there is another way to get there.”

Chris Crosby, a board member of the Tempe Bicycle Action Group, said New Belgium provides the money to produce the festival and disperses all of the profits to local cycling groups.

“New Belgium goes to 11 cities to promote cycling and pays for all of it,” Crosby said. “They pay for the permits, the fences, the police and they use the profits to help us and other bike groups.”

Crosby said he and his fellow “TBAGgers” started the group about 10 years ago as a fun way to tour area bars, but it has evolved into a community awareness group.

“We use the donations from New Belgium to promote biking,” Crosby said. “We think that it is important because it promotes fitness, reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Financially, it makes sense, and it promotes a sense of community.”

Reach the reporter at jaking5@asu.edu.