This past Saturday, I participated in my first World Naked Bike Ride. It was a beautiful sunny day, moderately warm temperatures, with a sea of smiling faces! I rode nude for about 80 minutes throughout the City of Gardens and I will do it again next year!
My friend Dave from the Arbutus Park Club has been bugging me to attend the WNBR for two years. Last year I attended the pre-ride festivities but I did not participate in the riding for a few reasons:
- My brother-in-law's birthday party was being held shortly after the event
- I did not have enough cycling experience to feel comfortable riding downtown
- I did not have my own bicycle and riding nude is a very personal experience between a human and a piece of metal!
So I asked for a bicycle for my birthday last year, and the cheap piece of shit bike from Canadian Tire was only ready for use by late fall. The weather has been poor for most of this year and I only started practicing riding a few weeks ago. It turns out I'm a decent cyclist as long as I have lost of space to swerve suddenly.
So this year I had a bike, I could sort of ride, and my brother in law was in Europe for his birthday. It Was On! Or was it?
My graduation from UVIC was the Wednesday after the ride so early the morning before the ride, I went dress clothes shopping with my dad. We got home after 2pm, and the ride was at 3 sharp. I had to ask for a ride downtown from my dad! I didn't lie about what I was doing but I sure didn't offer any extra details.
Anyhow, thanks to a last minute ride, I got to the Legislative Buildings at 2:40 - plenty of time to spare. The ride ended up starting 10 minutes late anyways due to lack of organization (but that's all part and parcel of the WNBR)
I chit chatted with the other riders and I think I was the second person to get nude before the ride. I conversed with several people about the legality of nudity in british columbia and I even happened upon a fellow who was selling copies of my favourite webcomic. 20$ is a bit pricey for a magazine that is free online but if I had had the 20$ on me I would have gladly spent it for the excellent comic. I left my wallet (and unfortunately my bus pass) at home in my rush begging for a ride.
The ride started just before 3:10 and we took off towards James Bay and our first "stop" was at Fisherman's Wharf, a local tourist attraction - but we didn't really stop there and we continued onto Dallas rd towards Beacon Hill Park.
We rode past the cruise ship terminal, and I huffed and puffed on my bike all the way up to Mile Zero at Beacon Hill Park. This is the pacific end of the Trans Canada Highway. It is also a memorial to Terry Fox
We took group photo's here for about 10 minutes. I have not found any good pictures yet of this but if I get some I will post them to my flikr account.
I discovered that I am so unused to my own bicycle that I lost it in a crowd of only 5 other bikes. I proceeded to convince myself that my clothes (inside a small backpack on my bike) and my bike itself were stolen during the group photo. I panicked a bit but eventually found my bike. Nobody around me seemed to care...
Anyhow, the rest of the ride went smoothly and I really recommend participating in a future ride if you support any of the three following messages:
- Down with Big Oil!
- Even clothed cyclists are as good as naked on the road. So drivers: please share the roads respectfully
- Body Acceptance, body freedom, etc. The message that there is no shame in the natural human body.
Do not come to a WNBR expecting naturism. This is not naturism. The WNBR is a protest. Expect onlookers to gawk, photograph, and giggle at you. Most of them will be friendly and smile as well though!
Overall I had a great experience riding nude in the WNBR. For more information about the WNBR see their website at www.worldnakedbikeride.org
As mentioned earlier, I forgot my bus pass at home. I live only a short bus ride but a fairly long walk home. I was very tired and ended up walking my bike for most of it. It was torture... :)
For the very patient. here is a link to some pictures of the event. The pictures are very female oriented and my not-naturism alarms are going off. Since the event itself had nothing to do with naturism anyways, I am overlooking this glaring issue. The pictures have full nudity but are completely G rated.
-Marauder
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