Han pasado unos meses desde el devastador terremoto en la Ciudad de México. Esperemos que se recuperen pronto y queden mejor de como estaban antes. Vi bastante de esta ciudad en junio durante uno de los eventos más divertidos que uno pueda imaginar: ¡el World Naked Bike Ride! Ya durante mi primer WNBR en 2009 en Madrid (también conocida como “marcha ciclonudista”), estaba claro que esas rodadas eran una excelente forma de ver la ciudad, y en compañía de cientos de personas desnudas. ¿Puedes pensar de un mejor tour de la ciudad? Y todo es por una buena causa para promover el ciclismo como mejor modo de transporte en respuesta a la creciente contaminación y sobrepoblación. La desnudez aquí ayuda para promover el mensaje: los ciclistas usan solamente energía del cuerpo humano (¡entonces a mostrar ese cuerpo!) y aún de que somos los más propensos a la verdadera indecencia del tráfico y la contaminación que dejan los vehículos.
Y no da pesar tener algunos mensajes directos escritos en esos cuerpos desnudos, por eso en el inicio del evento, muchas personas hacen body-painting y decoran sus cuerpos de una forma divertida y creativa. Yo tenía “energía pura” escrito en mi pierna,
y este chico “frágil”,
otro nos recordó de mantener la distancia de 1.5m de separación de los coches,
otros sólo constaban su gusto por andar en bicicleta,
etc, etc.
Y esta pareja paseaba un mensaje sobre el ridículo enfoque de la sociedad hacia la aceptación del cuerpo sin palabras pero usando un bañador (uno entre los dos =)
El WNBR une a todo tipo de personas,
y desnudos, hasta nos sentimos más unidos.
¡Incluso el Presidente del país vecino del Norte se unió al WNBR en la Ciudad de México!
¡Jaja! Bueno, eso pudo haber sido demasiado revolucionario, pero con sus ideales sobre el cambio climático y la falta de respeto hacia los cuerpos (por lo menos de las mujeres), esto debió haber sido sólo sarcasmo. De cualquier modo, uno de los cantos que se escucharon en el WNBR de la Ciudad de México fue “si Zapata viviera, en bici anduviera”. Pero él ya no anda por aquí, y otros políticos prominentes notablemente no aparecen en el WNBR. Así que, ¿sólo tenemos esperanza en super héroes?
De hecho eventos como el WNBR muestran cómo todos podemos ser una solución, especialmente si actuamos juntos.
Como siempre en eventos nudistas masivos como este, fue interesante observar la reacción del público, y mientras que la mayoría se veían intrigados por la marcha, otros no estuvieron tan contentos.
De alguna forma sería de ayuda si no sólo el público general si no también algunos negocios reconocieran el valor de este tipo de eventos (a pesar de que tal vez algún repartidor de Uber Eats se nos unió mientras regresaba de trabajar).
Pues bien, los servicios de renta de bicicletas serían obviamente los más interesados en esto, ¡y de hecho había algunos ofreciendo descuentos para el WNBR en México!
Siempre es bonito ver a otros medios de transporte impulsados por el propio cuerpo en estas rodadas, como las patinetas y patines así como varias formas de bicicletas: tandem,
altas,
yacente…
Y esta escultura parece que estaba participando también, a pesar de que atrajo un poco menos de atención.
Tuvimos una breve parada en el Auditorio Nacional en la avenida de Paseo de la Reforma,
Pero algunas personas también se detuvieron para tomarse fotos con la escultura de Alas de México. Este es aparentemente uno de las cosas más fotografiadas en la Ciudad de México (bueno, de hecho está perfectamente montada para una buena foto), pero supongo que no hay muchas posibilidades de tomarte una foto desnudo ahí, a pesar de que su escultor, Jorge Marín, seguramente lo aprobaría, ya que la mayoría de sus creaciones son desnudos o semi-desnudos.
Después de eso, estábamos de regreso en las calles,
En el verdadero espíritu del World Naked Bike Ride.
No como en Nueva York, pero parecido a como en otras de las grandes ciudades en las que se realiza el WNBR, esta manifestación aquí fue sancionada y apoyada por la policía. La ruta tiene que ser coordinada desde antes y cambia cada año. Algunas veces va a través de más partes de la ciudad, otras veces menos; este año la ruta cubría una buena sección del centro, pero aparentemente ha habido rodadas más largas en la historia de este evento. Terminamos en el mismo punto en el que iniciamos, lo cual fue bueno para tomar algunas fotos con otro importante: el Monumento a la Revolución.
Con tantos participantes, al final había todavía algunos que no había visto durante la rodada y que tenían pinturas interesantes en sus cuerpos (estilo Día de los Muertos),
…o nada de body paint.
Había también un vendedor ambulante con nieve, lo cual fue perfecto después de la rodada.
Disfruté por unos minutos el simple hecho de estar desnudo en la calle, como si fuera otro día en la ciudad… pero sin ropa.
¡Uno puede soñar! Pero el WNBR ciertamente ayuda con la aceptación del cuerpo y así puede hacer que ese sueño se vuelva realidad!
Aquí está un bonus, un video de 15 minutos de la excursión a través del centro de la Ciudad de México con un montón de personas desnudas.
It’s been a month since the devastating earthquake in Mexico City, and let’s hope it will recover well, to be better than before. I saw quite a bit of this city in June during one of the most fun events imaginable: the World Naked Bike Ride! Already in my first ever WNBR – in Madrid 2009 – it was clear that such rides provide an amazing way to see the city, and in the company of hundreds naked (or so) people. Can you think of a better city tour? And it’s all for a great cause to promote cycling to be the major mode of urban transportation in response to ever increasing pollution and overpopulation. Nudity here helps to get the message across: cyclists use the pure power of human body (so, show that body!) – and yet we are the ones who are most prone to the truly indecent exposure to the traffic and vehicle pollution.
And it doesn’t hurt to get some more specific messages written on those naked bodies, so in the beginning of the event, many people spend time with body-painting and decorating themselves in other funny and creative ways. I had ‘energía pura’ written on my thigh,
and this guy – ‘fragile’,
another reminded to keep the distance of 1.5 m away from cars (‘distancia de autos 1.5 m’),
others just acknowledged their love to cycling,
etc etc.
And this couple conveyed a message about society’s ridiculous approach toward body acceptance without words but by wearing a bathing suit – one between the two of them =)
WNBR brings all kinds of people together,
and naked, we feel even more united.
Even the President north of the border joined WNBR in Mexico City!
Haha! Oh well, that would have been quite revolutionary, but with his views on climate change and lack of respect to (at least female) bodies, this must have been just a sarcasm. By the way, one of the chants at the WNBR in Mexico City was ‘si Zapata viviera, en bici anduviera’ (if Zapata lived, he would go by bike). But he is not around anymore, and other prominent politicians are notably absent from the WNBR. So, can we only hope for superheroes?
Well, actually events like WNBR show that we all can be a solution, especially if we act together.
As always at such mass naked events, it was interesting to observe reaction of the public, and while the majority seemed to be quite intrigued by the parade, some were not as amused.
Certainly it’ll be helpful if not only general public but some businesses recognize the value of such events (though maybe that ‘Uber eats’ guy just joined us on the way from work).
Well, bike rental services would be the most obvious interested party, and actually there were some offering special deals for WNBR in Mexico!
It is always nice to see other body-powered modes of transportation at these rides, such as skateboards and roller blades, as well as various forms of bicycles – tandem,
tall,
recumbent…
And this sculpture was seemingly participating too, though it attracted a bit less attention.
We had a brief stop at Auditorio Nacional on the avenue of Paseo de la Reforma,
but quite a few people also stopped to take pictures with the sculpture of Alas de México (Wings of Mexico). This is apparently one of the most photographed places in Mexico City (well, as it is obviously set up perfectly for a portrait), but I guess there are not many possibilities to take a nude photo there, even though its sculptor, Jorge Marín, would surely approve that, as most of his creations are nude or almost nude.
After that, we were back to the streets,
in the true spirit of the World Naked Bike Ride.
Unlike in New York City, but similar to other major cities that host WNBR, this manifestation here was sanctioned and supported by police. The route has to be coordinated in advance and changes every year. Sometimes it goes through more parts of the city, sometimes fewer; this year it covered a decent section of the center, but apparently there’ve been longer rides in its history. We ended at the same spot where we started, which was nice to take some photos with another landmark – Monumento a la Revolución.
With so many participants, in the end there were still some that I hadn’t seen during the ride with interesting body paint (Día de los muertos style),
… or no body paint at all.
There also was a street vendor with ice-cream, which was perfect after the ride.
And I enjoyed a few minutes of just being naked on the street, as if it was just another day in the city… but without clothes.
One can dream! But World Naked Bike Ride certainly helps with body acceptance and thus may make that dream come true!
Here is a bonus – a 15-minute video excursion through the center of Mexico City with a bunch of naked people.
Here comes our report from Burning Man festival this year, when 18 of us gathered together to create a camp themed around Gymnasium as an Ancient Greek institution for athletics, philosophy and socializing. You can read more about the concept of our camp on its own webpage; we launched this project a few months earlier at FreeForm Festival, and here you can see how it came about at the festival of festivals, Burning Man. (But keep in mind that this is by no means an attempt to write about the festival as a whole, there simply “too much” fun stuff happens to be able to grasp more than just a fraction of it.)
After months of preparation, the last days before the festivals were very exciting but also a bit scary – with this endeavor being our first experience as such a theme camp, something was likely to go wrong! Indeed, our early arrival/construction crew had a flat tire at the start of the trip in San Francisco, and as we collected all the stuff that we planned to carry to Black Rock City, we realized we had to buy an extra trailer. We resolved all the issues smoothly but experienced another setback due to the weather, as on Saturday before the opening of the festival, when we had planned to construct our camp, a severe dust storm took place; we could only enter Black Rock City in the evening and started construction early on Sunday.
Well, luckily we didn’t plan on building anything complicated, so we raised most of our shade structures before the rest of our campmates arrived. (Then later on in the afternoon a strong gust almost blew off a part of our shade structure, bending some of the carrying metal parts and tearing apart one of the tarps, but we were able to fix it; although it doesn’t say so in the instructions, it is apparently important to fix the structure with additional ropes and rebar.)
The final touch was putting up the banner of our camp.
Our location was great – at 7:30 Portal and A, we were at a busy intersection, but also with easy access to the Esplanade and an open view all the way to the man.
And that view proved to be nothing short of amazing on the first night, with the supermoon rising next to the Man statue.
Another nature’s wonder was a mini-tornado coming to us from the playa –
it was not any dangerous though, as you can see in the video below.
Well, this video shows a few other things too, but there’s still a lot more to the story (and two more videos) – so keep on reading. A couple more words about the camp:
We had a simple bike rack available for the visitors (note the horse head masks used for its decoration, I’ll mention them later).
For decoration, we used an olive tree (artificial – live plants are prohibited at Burning Man), columns adorned with ivy, and a small statue of Poseidon (without a trident, to make him look more like a generic Ancient Greek athlete…) – next time, we plan to team up with a 3D-printing camp to make a bigger statue.
The schedule of our activities was put daily on the blackboard.
Our first event included two running races – a 100-yard sprint
and a longer, approx. 1.8 km run from our camp to the Man and back.
The sprint was won by Chris, and the long run by yours truly 🙂
Admittedly, there weren’t that many participants, but it was still very early in the week, while many camps were still wrapping up their construction. We had other races planned, e.g. piggy-back and barrel-run, as we did at FreeForm, but we had to postpone and eventually cancel those due to dust storms and because the horse head masks which were meant for the final run of that race were stolen borrowed without asking from our bike rack. We also had to cancel our only night event – ‘discus (LED-lit frisbee) throw in the dark… and in the buff’ – because the nights were bitterly cold in the second half of the week! (Though as you can briefly see in the video above, we still managed to dance naked at some night parties getting warm by the fire from the art cars.)
Our ‘Naked Philosophy’ session was more of a personal introduction among our camp mates, as we did not know each of us in person; and then we discussed our experience in naturism and what it meant for us.
Our most successful event by far was the naked oil wrestling, and here is our second video dedicated to it. Unfortunately some of the video is quite blurry, because oil got on my camera, and most of the footage was not usable at all Oh well, at least it was a GoPro in a sealed casing, so the camera was totally fine after washing.
Our naked oil wrestling drew a lot of attention, even people in fancy mutant vehicles stopped to watch the match.
As at FreeForm Festival, we used sumo rules, which are the easiest to follow from all wrestling types, and added some Greekness to it with olive oil (and nudity), as a reference to the authentic Olympics.
Each match started with ceremonial wide steps, and then opponents tried to push each other
until one of them stepped outside the ring;
and the soles of the feet were the only part of the body allowed to touch the ground – so pushing the opponent down could also work.
But perhaps the most effective approach is simply carrying the opponent outside the ring, preferably keeping him upside down! 😀
For each pair, the victory was decided in 2 wins out of 3 matches.
We didn’t structure the whole event as an ultimate competition though – anyone could challenge whoever they wanted, and more than once. But we had two wrestlers that stood out
and were well matched –
so their sparring was very intense and captivating.
But even the fiercest match ended with a hug.
And both of them received well-deserved golden laurel wreaths!
our winners!
(By the way, I lost their contact, so if anyone knows them – please put us in touch!)
After the final match, all wrestlers were welcome to go to an amazing massive group shower ‘perfoamance’ at the camp called ‘Something Freaky Foams This Way’. Next day, we arranged the same competition at their camp – so that people queuing up to get foamed would try their strength in wrestling and entertain the public, and skip the line. We got in touch with one of the organizers of this camp at FreeForm Festival, and this was the best collaboration we could ask for – getting clean and relaxed felt particularly amazing after days in the dust and then even more so after wrestling. Decent showers are obviously quite sought-after at Burning Man, but this camp brings the whole experience to the next level by making it a massive group (40 people at a time) and entertaining activity (with countdown and music, water and foam sprayed under high pressure).
Here are some more photos from the wrestling matches at our camp and ‘Something Freaky Foams This Way’, if the ones above and the video aren’t enough.
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Besides planned events, we had a few spontaneous activities, e.g. dance practices by Antony and damoN.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any footage of our fun session of a naked Greek dance with music from ‘Zorba the Greek’. It was lead by our new friend from another camp, and he rightfully suggested we would like the idea of performing this dance naked, which he said was his fantasy from a while ago, when he learned it at a Greek restaurant.
And if you follow this blog, you shouldn’t be surprised seeing some naked capoeira here 🙂
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And with Tam around, acro-yoga was bound to happen sooner or later –
to our own and guests’ entertainment.
Then we toured a bit around the playa and did more acro-posing with some of Burning Man’s most interesting art constructions in the background.
This structure proved to combine very well with acro-yoga,
as its multiple lines were quite easy to align with the body parts of the posers.
From afar, it looked as if the giant metal ball was resting on Antony supported by Tam’s legs…
And one of the Mars Molecules seemed to be designed perfectly for acro-yoga, not just as a background, but as a base too.
Here is a composition with three men again.
And now, three men intertwined into one ‘laughing dragon’ –
laughing and causing laughter in viewers alike.
There were a few other camps that offered activities in the buff. Besides washing your body from all the dust, sweat and, in our case, also oil at the ‘perfoamance’ camp, cleaning the nose from accumulating dust seemed like a good idea too… and of course there was a camp for that – Neti’s (naked) Nose Spa – and naked too! I really liked how I felt afterwards, so when I got home I immediately ordered a neti pot. Some events were missed due to dust storms or cold nights (e.g. black light naked twister), others I simply forgot about (e.g. naked skateboarding session).
The camp across the street from us, Decadent Oasis, provided the best light show at night, with their technicolor ever-changing palm trees and great music. We were invited to do a striptease for their bachelorette party, though we first had to find some clothes to put on 😀 They also had a slackline,
and we were treated with a show of really good slackline walker who was naked and walked it all way through.
Speaking of which, the Naked Pub Crawl was again among the best events at Burning Man
and certainly the largest naked one.
You can see more of it in the first video above,
but as you can guess from the name, it involves cycling naked around Black Rock City with hundreds of fellow burners and getting drinks at participating camps.
Duckpond camp offered some extra entertainment with their ‘mechanical bull’ ride,
which featured plenty of nudity in its decoration among other elements.
Another view of the R-Evolution statue.
Riding on the bike in the heat of the day felt pretty nice thanks to the light wind (unless it turned into a dust storm!)
But the best conditions seemed to be around sunset time – the sun wasn’t scorching but it was still very warm before the onset of the cold night, and the air was still – that’s when we liked strolling around in our altogethers. But the photo below shows how you can be well protected against the elements while being naked!
And for comparison, this is how the same place looked like one day after the end of the festival…
Sad that everything has to come to an end, but on the other hand Burning Man celebrates immediacy, so realization of the temporary nature of… everything is part of the festival.
We made sure to leave no trace behind us and were ready to go home for the next adventure. Gymnasium proved to be a great experience for its organizers and visitors alike (hopefully all of them, let me know if not) and will hopefully develop only more in years to come!
And here is our third, bonus video with damoN performing on the playa. This was shot while the festival was still rocking, just outside Black Rock City. In case you thought it was difficult to escape from the crowds at this massive festival, it is actually easy to find a place where you can be alone when you would like to reconnect with your ‘inner self’; and the vast open landscape of the desert will only help with that. But it’s good to know that you’re next to the city full of your friends or yet-to-become friends.
World Naked Bike Ride will gather thousands of cyclists in many cities of the Northern Hemisphere to promote cycling as a mode of urban transportation, as well as body acceptance. The dress code is “as bare as you dare”, but in my opinion being naked is the best way to get the message across: cyclists use the power of human body for commuting in the city – so, show that body! – and yet we are the ones who are most prone to the truly indecent exposure to the traffic and vehicle pollution. In most cities, including my current hometown NYC, the ride will be held on Saturday the 13th. You can see the list of participating cities here, though it’s not entirely updated – look up if you have a local World Naked Bike Ride near you!
You can see my reports from WNBR in NYC 2013 and 2012, Boston WNBR 2014, as well as from Madrid in 2009; Philly Naked Bike Ride was in is the biggest one I’ve participated so far. As long, as NYPD doesn’t disturb us like last year, we should have a fun ride all along – come and join WNBR NYC if you’re around:
Bodies assembly at 4:00pm, ride departs by 5:00 pm sharp. Arrive early for body painting, trainings, teach-ins, and socializing! Volunteers plan on coming early! Grand Ferry Park; final route will be communicated to riders who show up only. More details on WNBR NYC wiki page!
Last Saturday, Boston had its own edition of the World Naked Bike Ride, when more than 200 people took over its streets.
It’s my 4th city where I’ve done WNBR, but it’s the first one where it takes place at night.
I won’t stop repeating that WNBR is probably the most cheerful and peaceful demonstration against oil-dependency, promoting human-powered modes of transportation as a healthy alternative. It serves as a fun bike tour too, and I think I’m going to make it a tradition to visit new cities for WNBR.
I’m not sure that nigh is the best time of the day for WNBR, as we want to have a bigger impact on public, and Boston is not the city that never sleeps. However, we passed through both sleeping and bustling neighborhoods, with overwhelming support from the street crowd, especially on the streets with bars 🙂
We had a couple of short breaks to catch the breath in parks,
just to fill up the streets again with new power.
Altogether we were riding for more than 2 hours through Boston downtown and Cambridge in our altogethers!
Given the nightly atmosphere, it was nice to have some bright lights, which a friend of mine gave me as a present after I got hit by car; they are a bit too crazy to use them on a daily (or rather, nightly) basis, but they served just fine for WNBR in NYC and now in Boston, and thanks to them I got on boston.com site – check out the photo gallery with yours truly.
Last Friday, the weather in New York city wasn’t the most cooperative for the World Naked Bike Ride, and yet a couple of dozens of hardiest cyclists showed up at the Grand Ferry Park. We welcomed the thunderstorm by dancing naked in the downpour, and as the rain was calming down, we took off to the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Despite the weather, there were still people on the streets, and we got cheered by pedestrians, other cyclists and car drivers alike! We got some friendly smiles and hand waives even from police. When passers by asked us why we were naked, I replied that skin was waterproof 😉
By the time we got to Washington Square Park, it stopped raining altogether.
But some of us seemed to miss water already 🙂
I wish New York accepted nudity, at least in parks, and as these rides show, general public doesn’t seem to be opposed to it, once confronted to a cheerful naked crowd.
The World Naked Bike Ride aims to promote safe environments for cyclists and public in general, and who would argue that if you can feel safe in your city while being naked, it must be as safe as it gets?
Then we headed out to the Hudson Greenway and took some more pictures with iconic views.
As to the banner, I personally don’t think NYC should be car-free altogether, but it would definitely become a better city, if half of the drivers switched to bicycles 🙂
Unfortunately, our ride after that didn’t go as peaceful and proved that it wasn’t the weather we should have been worried about:
All of a sudden, we were overtaken by an undercover police car (disguised as a yellow cab!) and then even more police came and blocked the street. We can only guess why, but they also arrested two of the participants!
It was pleasing to get support from bystanders. One of them shouted that he thought he happened to be in Iran. However, this didn’t stop police, and our two arrestees were detained till next evening! Your can read more at the blog of one of the organizers of New York’s WNBR, Ben, as well as an article from Gothamist.
I was very happy about how our ride went last year, and there is no reason why it should have ended so bitter this year. I’m especially puzzled why this happens in seemingly liberal New York. I bet many spectators of our ride on Friday had that “only in New York” moment, but what they probably didn’t realize was that in many cities of the world and US, the World Naked Bike Ride actually attracts many more riders, and what happens only in New York perhaps is that participants of such rides get arrested. Hopefully, it’ll be better next year. And there’re still some more rides this year too, including WNBR Boston next Saturday, June 28 (read this announcement about at Boston Magazine).
Last weekend, I went to Free Form Festival at The Schuylkill County Fairgrounds, PA, and it was a nice and necessary breath of freedom after I witnessed the arrest at WNBR.
This festival celebrates anything positive and artsy, anything that brings people together and raises the spirit, and social nudity is a part of it.
I started off with a naked lunch, which by coincidence seemed to be all Tuscan style – featuring Tuscan salami, Tuscan bean salad, and Tuscan salami – despite I bought those at different places without thinking about it :p
Free Form Festival follows the format of Burning Man, just at a smaller scale and with grass instead of dust.
I didn’t take many photos, as it was more about having fun and interacting with people.
Even though nudity is not common there, it’s definitely welcome. As you can see at this photo from a contact workshop, where we pretended to be a school of fish, nobody had a problem with following a naked dude.
At night, everybody gathered for the effigy burn, and a few people, including me, were dancing naked around. One of the fire spinners got naked too, and had a solo performance on the side. Also, a guy whose dance style was more like Tai Chi got naked too and taught me a couple of principal Tai Chi moves. Then he brought me to a creek with cold water behind the amphitheater. And that was my experience of duality – this year’s theme of Free Form Festival – fire and water, heat and cold, light and darkness…
Hopefully, events like the World Naked Bike Ride and Free Form Festival will make world a more open, accepting and freer place, so that you can feel safe even naked!
World Naked Bike Ride will gather thousands of cyclists in many cities of the Northern Hemisphere to promote cycling as a mode of urban transportation, as well as body acceptance. The dress code is “as bare as you dare”, but in my opinion being naked is the best way to get the message across: cyclists use the power of human body for commuting in the city – so, show that body! – and yet we are the ones who are most prone to the truly indecent exposure to the traffic and vehicle pollution. In most cities, the ride will be held on Saturday, 14 June, but in New York City, it’s on Friday the 13th. This will be a hell of a fun ride: an awesome way to finish off the work week, to say the least! You can see my reports from WNBR in NYC last year and 2012, as well as from Madrid in 2009; Philly Naked Bike Ride is in August, and with 3500 participants last year is the biggest one I’ve participated. Although I don’t know the reasons why WNBR is held on a different day here in New York than in most the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, I’m glad that it’s on Friday, because it lets me go for the weekend to yet another amazing event.
Free Form Festival brings together the vast East-Coast creative arts community from 12-16 June at at The Schuylkill County Fairgrounds, Pennsylvania. With its aim to “increase diversity in our local artistic landscape”, it will surely be interesting and fun, and by the way, it is an officially clothing-optional event too! Tickets are still on sale and may be purchased by clicking here. Who else is going?
I’m also looking forward to ‘Bouncing Buns‘ 7k Trail Race in Pennsylvania for American Cancer Society on the 21st of June. 7km is the longest distance that I’ve seen for a naked or clothing-optional race – it’s good to be challenged, moreover for a good cause. Well, in 2012, I passed the challenge pretty well, coming in third! I ran a bit faster last year, but with fiercer competition, I had only 7th result. This year, I cannot hope to run faster, as I’m still not 100% recovered after my ankle injury, but will I have less fun? Of course not! With 150 or so naturist folks of all shapes and ages, everybody can feel comfortable in their own skin. However, I’m going with a couple of fellows again, and it doesn’t hurt to have some healthy competition, just like with the friends in ‘Team America’ that I got to know last year. The event is organized by Pretzel City Sports and you can register for the race at their website: $25 before June 9, $32 after. Part of your registration fee will support American Cancer Society, and afterwards you get an opportunity to hang out at Sunny Rest naturist resort, where the trail race will take place. It’s a great opportunity to run just the way you like. The event is clothing-optional, and we’ll certainly opt for the style of the [authentic] Olympic runners 😉 Also, if you have any doubts about running naked, have a look at my brief overview that links running and our naturally naked (furless) body from an evolutionary perspective – I hope it’ll make sense to you. Besides participating in the race, we also plan to do some yoga at Sunny Rest, as well as play badminton and volleyball.
Last but not least, as the beach season has commenced, it’s worth mentioning that there is a Groupon sale for the Seastreak ferry from Manhattan to Sandy Hook beach: $25 instead of regular $45. Unfortunately, unlike in previous years, there is no $30 coupon on Seastreak’s website, and you can only get one groupon ticket…
Philly Naked Bike Ride is Philadelphia’s own edition of the World Naked Bike Ride; as their website states, “PNBR is about: Riding together to promote fuel conscious consumption, positive body image, and cycling advocacy.” From my first experience of the World Naked Bike Ride in Madrid in 2009, I also learnt that it is the best way to have a bike tour through the city – with hundreds of fun people as a company and central streets being cleared of cars. So I thought it’d appropriate to visit the first historic capital of the United States on such an occasion. In most cities in Northern Hemisphere, World Naked Bike Ride takes place on the second weekend of June, but Philadelphia hosts one in August, so I wouldn’t have to skip the ride in NYC this year in order to go to Philly. Although I was happy with how New York’s naked bike ride went this year, I have to admit it is dwarfed by the ride in Philly with its 3000+ participants.
As my friend from Philadelphia who gave me a lift to the city wanted to volunteer before the ride, we arrived a couple of hours before the official start. There were numerous signs and volunteers on the bike lanes that directed bikers towards the starting point.
The lawn next to Penn Treaty Park was already filling up with people, and as soon as the first one got naked many others followed the trend; body painters were getting busy too.
Then more friends from NYC arrived, and after we covered ourselves with enough glitter (with the assumption that there is no such thing as too much glitter),
we went on to make new friends and share glitter.
Green, for the political statement.
Meanwhile, the lawn got really packed and the bikers were lining up in preparation for the ride. This was another opportunity to make new friends, like this fellow in romper suit.
The organisers and volunteers of PNBR were dismantling the stands and cleaning the park, a good tone for environmental demonstration.
Some participants had to do last minute fixes…
So the delay time was not wasted,
and the energy was high when the ride finally started.
The work of volunteers continued in regulating the traffic and directing the ride, and they did a great job, all went smooth. This is quite impressive given the mere number of cyclists. We filled up the street as far as you could see in both directions.
That’s what you call a critical mass! In the tunnel, it was even more evident.
Below is an arial shot.
By the way, although the vast majority of participants rode typical bicycles, you could see a wide spectrum of engine-free modes of transportation.
Of course, there was a tandem bicycle – perfect for a well coordinated couple, as it provides better power-to-weight ratio.
And this guy on the tall bike certainly had the best view.
Those two ladies had a leisurely ride without having to pedal at all, thanks to a friend who didn’t mind being their rickshaw.
There were some BMX bikers too, but unfortunately there was not much chance for them to show their skills, but I’m sure it was a pretty intense exercise anyways, as most of the time during our 2-hour ride they had to pedal standing.
So as this guy on a stepper bike (not sure which is more difficult).
But why limit yourself with bicycles? Roller skates
and skateboards were a popular choice too and proved to be good alternative for commuting in Philly.
But I saw a couple of people who went even further: they ran the whole route. One of them, even barefoot. Why not, human body is capable of amazing physical endurance.
I myself was ‘just another’ cyclist on the ride, except that I was busy taking a lot of pictures for this report (most of the photos here are by me, but some are from the PNBR flickr pool).
And there were a lot of notable characters worth mentioning:
the tall bike guy again (he quite literally stood out in the crowd);
Deadmau5 (or rather his fan, judging by the absence of the tattoos);
and this fellow with the first aid kit was conveniently easy to spot too (not that anyone ended up needing it, as far as I know)… Oh wait, I think he just missed this dude who seemed to have got himself seriously wounded before the ride even started…
Don’t worry, he was actually just promoting the ‘Naked and Scared Challenge’ at Shocktoberfest, “Pennsylvania’s Premier Haunted Scream Park.”
By the way, the success of Philly Naked Bike Ride has drawn an even bigger company to promote itself by distributing free drinks to energise the participants. Nothing wrong with that!
And definitely there was an impact on other citizens of the city.
Most importantly, car drivers seemed to be happy with the ride, even though we took over the streets for a while.
Some cheerers had even prepared quite affirming posters for us.
And even entire families went out of their houses to cheer to us!
I’m pretty sure those tourists on the bus got some good memories; and perhaps next time, they will take a bike tour instead. Speaking of which – as I mentioned, it was my first visit to Philadelphia,
so I enjoyed the views of the city on the way,
especially when we rode between Philadelphia Museum of Art
and Logan Square and the City Hall;
riding through some narrower streets was fun too.
The ride ended at a parking lot near Piazza.
Here is the view from above.
Unfortunately, unlike in previous year the after-party was no longer clothing-optional, as the condominiums surrounding Piazza pressured its owner to make participants of the Philly Naked Bike Ride to be no longer naked around there. The party at PYT bar was still fun, but there was a rumour that Piazza owner also has a swimming pool, which would be a great alternative for the after-party next year. That would be great, but regardless of that, Philly Naked Bike Ride has established itself as a massive event with a lot of fun and big impact.
Last Saturday, many cities throughout Northern Hemisphere have seen one of the merriest events imaginable which also represents a peaceful demonstration for environmental consciousness and body acceptance – World Naked Bike Ride. I think it wouldn’t be a true world event if New York weren’t a part of it; finally, New York City is catching up on the naked part too! Unlike last year, this time we were escorted by police, but unlike 2 years ago, they were rather cooperative and did not bother for fully naked participants.
Needless to say, naked, semi-naked and bizarrely-dressed riders attracted a lot of attention. Our naked bodies meant to emphasise that we are unprotected against the traffic and pollution…
and if someone didn’t get the message, they also served a great canvas for slogans.
‘More ass, less gas’ was probably our most popular chant too.
If only more people used bikes, how much cleaner and quieter it would be! Is it not possible to imagine New York City streets like that –
– most people going by bikes and just a few by cars (typically for NYC, cabs). And by the way, nobody seemed to be shocked by nudity – quite on contrary, we were cheered all the time. Even if people were puzzled what it was all about, I’m pretty sure many would check online and get the idea.
As I mentioned, it was quite comforting that police was cooperating and friendly (except for one brief incident). I was actually running late for the ride and, accompanied by a fellow [male] rider in a kind of ballerina skirt, which immediately revealed where we were heading to, we were given directions by policemen several times. During the ride, they only seemed to care that we would follow traffic rules.
But I think we were actually pretty good, law-abiding riders, except that we wouldn’t all fit on the bike lane.
For some reason, police was particularly concerned that we’d ride strictly on the right side of the Hudson River Greenway, so we stretched out quite a lot there.
I think the Hudson River Greenway is one of the best urban projects, and it is definitely my favourite way to go Up-/Downtown Manhattan on the west side, and is probably the most pleasant bike path in the whole city.
That’s where we could gain some speed and ride freely without having to watch out for cars.
Williamsburg Bridge is probably the most bike-friendly of all big bridges, and it was so nice to ride it in the buff, feeling the breeze all over body.
Can’t we get some more of such dedicated bike paths? Even the East River Greenway is not complete. I guess we’ll have to continue our naked bike rides and chanting ‘More ass, less gas’ in the years to come 🙂
PS Thanks to Time’s Up for organising the WNBR in New York City. Here is the video produced by Barbara from 2013 ride:
World Naked Bike Ride is coming to New York City again, on Saturday, the 8th of June, together with many other cities around northern hemisphere. I’ll repeat again, that it is a worldwide demonstration promoting cycling as an urban mode of transportation, as well as body acceptance. Riding naked is symbolic and effective way to draw attention to vulnerability of people against the traffic and pollution, and it also shows that being nude is not lewd. Please refer to my previous post why I think we really need this demonstration to be seen and heard in New York City particularly.
Even if you don’t consider yourself an environmental activist or are not sure about public nudity, consider another great aspect of WNBR – fun! I’ve participated in this event in Madrid and New York, as well as at Burning Man last year, and it’s always great fun!
Oh well, at least it was a GoPro in a sealed casing, so the camera was totally fine after washing.
Active Naturists 