The World Naked Bike Ride, with Photos? (Guess you’ll have to click to find out)

         

I could tell that someone was staring at me. You know the feeling—even though you can’t actually see their eyes looking at you, you somehow know they are. And it wasn’t in that flirtatious kind of way, like when a girl is goggling over a man she finds attractive. No, this guy was straight-up glaring at me, like when one man wants nothing more than to hurt another man. I finally gave in and turned my head in his direction. That’s when he straightened his arm and pointed his index finger at me. “Narc!” he yelled loudly. “That guy’s a narc!”

            “Narc” began as a slang term for a narcotics officer, presumably someone who is a member of law enforcement, but it eventually evolved into the more universal meaning of anybody who turns somebody in for doing something wrong. I wasn’t sure which definition this guy believed me to be as he yelled into the crowd. Could I be a cop? Sure. I suppose. But couldn’t anybody be a cop? Though, in my case, it did seem unlikely, seeing that my hair was long—almost touching my shoulders—and my beard was scraggly. Not typically what one thinks of when they picture a cop.

Could I be somebody who was going to turn him in for doing something wrong? Most definitely. But again, couldn’t anybody? I mean, what distinguishes a “narc” from anybody else? And how could I even know that he was doing anything wrong? The fact that he was yelling “narc” at someone, regardless of who they were, was in itself a telltale sign that he was in fact doing something wrong—a clear admittance on his part.

But back to me—why me? What could have set this guy off to believe that I was out to get him? I doubt it was my hair or beard. After all, his wasn’t much different than mine. Could it be my bicycle? But everybody there had bikes. Perhaps my clothes? No. Impossible. Because I wasn’t wearing any. Nobody was. In fact, of the thousands of people gathered at the riverfront, the only people who were wearing clothes was the man pointing at me and his posse of a half-dozen delinquents now standing next to him, all of whom were by now convinced that I was a narc—a bare naked narc.

           

That was two years ago, and after that incident—among other reasons—I vowed to never participate in the World Naked Bike Ride again. But that was two years ago, and a lot can change in two years. My hair is short now, for one, and my beard isn’t as scraggly. Plus, I have a girlfriend who wants to do the ride. 2014 is her first year living in the city of Portland and the World Naked Bike Ride is somewhat of a rite of passage—an initiation of sorts—to becoming a true “Portlander.” (Whatever that means.) Being the closest to the starting spot, a group of friends meet at our house beforehand. Our party rolls out wearing clothes, because a half-dozen naked cyclists in daylight doesn’t go over quite as well as several thousand in the dark. We ride the two and a half miles to Normandale Park, where there is absolutely no doubt that we’re at the right place.

            There’s no term for the science of counting crowds, so I’m going to make one up—crowdology. Now, I’ve never claimed to be a crowdologist, but from my experience at rock concerts and music festivals, I would estimate around 10,000 people at the park. To put that in perspective, that’s about half the amount of spectators that would fit in a professional basketball arena. This may already seem like a very large number, but when you add the fact that nearly all of these people are naked, then things suddenly seem a lot more interesting. If we assume that there are as many males as there are females, then instead of thinking of the crowd as 10,000 naked people, we can think of it as 5,000 penises and 10,000 boobs. Which brings us yet to another new term: Nudistry—the science of counting naked people.

            Though I did not attend Woodstock, or any of its subsequent anniversary concerts, I can assume that the festivals had a similar feel to Normandale Park on this warm night in June. Music is streaming from all directions, body paint is prevalent, and the aroma of recreational drugs is in the air. And did I mention that everyone is naked. Just after 9pm, we strip down, the men to nothing, the women in our party, to their bottoms, and we hop on our bikes and ride. We’re able to start rather close to the front of the group where a marching band is playing and the streets are lined with spectators, most of whom seem to be as—or more—excited than those of us riding. After a slow start, we’re finally on our bikes and pedaling, the wind blowing through our hair, even those of us wearing helmets—The World Naked Bike Ride has officially begun.

            Though naked bicycle riding has a long history, the World Naked Bike Ride was conceived in 2004, by Conrad Schmidt, an activist in Vancouver, Canada, who was the coordinator for the Work Less Party of British Columbia. The first WNBR featured participation from 28 cities, in 10 countries, on 4 continents. By the turn of the decade, the ride would expand to 74 cities, in 17 countries. Initially the ride was formed as a protest against oil dependency, though it eventually shifted focus to bicycle advocacy. Apparently, riding naked represents how vulnerable cyclists are on streets filled with automobiles. Personally, I believe most people are here just to have a good time, but since it is a “protest,” it’s entirely legal under our First Amendment rights. The Portland Police Department even corks traffic at nearly every cross street throughout the entire route, no doubt pissing off unsuspected drivers who weren’t aware the ride was taking place. But on the bright side, if you are forced to wait in your car, what better way to pass time than to watch thousands of naked people ride by on bikes?

          

  The perturbed drivers blocked by the cops aren’t the only spectators. Thousands of people come out to watch what I heard one person refer to as a “freak parade.” Because the meeting point of the ride was widely announced beforehand, it wasn’t surprising to see a crowd gathered toward the start, but since the route was a secret, it was surprising to see how many spectators still found their way to the sidelines over the course of the next five or so miles. In past years the ride went through the heart of the city, passing the bars and clubs downtown, causing crowds of drunkards to whoop and holler and occasionally throw things. This year the ride took a much more pleasant route, through what I would refer to as “wealthy” neighborhoods where I even saw the occasional family outside to watch the festivities. For the handful of teenage boys I noticed along the route, this appeared—by the looks on their faces—to be the greatest night of their lives. And when the ride did pass a handful of bars, they were in the much more cultured districts of town, where several spectators themselves had no problem stripping down, if only to cheer us on.

            As for the party that I arrived with, well, it’s very easy to get split up when you’re riding in a group consisting of thousands of people. My friend Colin immediately disappeared. (Even as I write this, I have no idea what happened to him.) Kelly, who we all thought was a bit reserved, has suddenly discovered the art of high-fiving. Before the ride started she was debating whether or not she was even going to take off her shirt, let alone her bra. Now, she is completely topless and high-fiving every spectator she can get her hand on. It’s as if she grew up in a world where high-fives were forbidden and for the first time in her life she has been liberated. “You’ve got to try high-fiving,” she says to me. “It’s fun for you, it’s fun for them, it’s just fun for everybody!”

            My girlfriend and her friend are simply riding, but her friend’s boyfriend possesses a specific skill that just so happens to come in handy on a night like this. He used to hold the world record for riding the longest wheelie on a bicycle and is not shy about showing off his talent. I watch as he rides on one wheel, and then continues to ride, and ride, and ride. Everybody around us can’t believe what they’re seeing, and if it isn’t for a steep incline, it seems that he could keep it up forever. Seeing someone do a wheelie for that long is strange, but seeing someone do a wheelie for that long while completely naked is even stranger. And that isn’t even close to being the strangest thing to be seen at the World Naked Bike Ride.

           

People seem to come out of the woodwork for events like this and they ride every possible type of bike one could imagine, and some that you probably couldn’t imagine. Of course there’s the standard bicycle, and then there’s mini-bikes, swing-bikes, double-decker bikes, folding bikes, recumbants, tandems, tricycles, quadcycles…you name it, somebody’s riding it. And then there are those who decorate their bikes, with things like crazy neon lights or large American flags that flap in the wind behind them. And then there are those who take it to a whole new level. I saw one guy riding a bike that looked like a rabbit. And a man on a double-decker bike that was all lit up to look like Pac-Man, the lights flickering to make it look as if it was opening and closing its mouth. And my favorite, an old man with a large lit-up ice cream cone standing on his rear rack, with the words “Free Licks” painted on his back. And then there’s the participants who don’t even have bicycles at all—runners, rollerbladers, people confined to wheelchairs, and skateboarders. Goddamn skateboarders!

            We’re almost to the finish—one last huge descent and we’re home free. We’re going downhill at a pretty good clip when I see the skateboard rolling across the street. It’s as if time freezes for a moment and I am a physicist who can calculate the projection of objects simply by looking at them. It’s going this speed, at that angle, in this direction—straight towards my girlfriend’s front wheel. My girlfriend, who until tonight has never ridden a bicycle in the dark, in a group, or naked. By the time I pull over and look back she is on two feet, her bike straddled sideways between her legs, the skateboard caught up in the mix. The kid unapologetically grabs his board and takes off. Katelin wrestles her bike back to a standing position and I let out a huge sigh of relief, because that could have ended up so much worse.

           

We finish the ride and get home alive, just as I eventually did two years ago. I still have no idea why the street kids picked me out of the crowd and decided that I was a narc. It’s not something that you casually ask someone: “Excuse me good sir, but could you please explain why you believe that I am a narc?” It just wouldn’t go over that well. So, how did I get out of it? Simple—I had a bicycle and they didn’t. I merely rode away. Two wheels are always better than none—even if you are naked.