World Naked Bike Ride


The World Naked Bike Ride is an international clothing-optional bike ride in which participants plan, meet and ride together en masse on human-powered transport, to "deliver a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world."
The dress code motto is "bare as you dare".

History

In 2003, Conrad Schmidt conceived the World Naked Bike Ride after organising the Naked Bike Rides of the group Artists for Peace/Artists Against War. Initially, the message of the WNBR was protesting against oil dependency and celebrating the power and individuality of the human body. In 2006, there was a shift towards simplifying the message and focusing on cycling advocacy.
The 2004 WNBR saw events in 28 cities, in ten countries on four continents. By 2010, WNBR had expanded to stage rides in 74 cities, in 17 countries, from the United States to the United Kingdom and Hungary to Paraguay.
Two male riders were arrested during the 2005 WNBR in North Conway, New Hampshire, and charged with "indecent exposure and lewdness". The two riders agreed to having the charges reduced to "disorderly conduct" and paid a $300 fine, the majority of which was paid for by the WNBR Legal Defense Fund. Six male riders were charged with public indecency during the 2005 WNBR Chicago ride and later prosecuted with sentences ranging from fines and non-expungeable conviction to three months of court supervision. In 2007, during the first World Naked Bike ride in Denver, Colorado police surrounded the bike riders and wrote several people tickets. During the WNBR held on June 12, 2010, two males were arrested by campus police at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Two riders were arrested in New York City in 2014 for "lewdness and indecent exposure".
Simon Oosterman, the organizer of the 2005 WNBR in Auckland, and the first to be arrested during a WNBR event, is credited with going further and refocusing the issue on oil-dependency. He urged: "Stop the indecent exposure to vehicle emissions."

Films