I’ve already mentioned Tom Harrison’s “Headline of the Day” email list, which is always entertaining and often good source material for Lowering the Bar items. I highly recommend signing up (email: tomharrison711 at gmail.com). I have an email distribution list too, of course, but HOTD can offer you similar entertainment in far fewer words. The cost is the same.
A recent link led to the headline, “A World Naked Bike Ride will happen Saturday, but it’s not the one you think,” from a post that appeared on BikePortland.org on September 18. Ordinarily, one wouldn’t expect much confusion as to which naked bike ride was taking place on a particular day. It’s a possibility here in San Francisco, but in practice the question has been exactly where and when the naked bike ride is going to take place so my eyes can be elsewhere. But it appears that in Portland, a split has arisen between rival naked-bike-riding organizations that could lead to confusion.
And that has led to a cease-and-desist letter, which nudges the story into my jurisdiction.
According to Wikipedia, 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 (the vast majority on bicycles, but some on skateboards and inline skates), to ‘deliver a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world.'” (I tried to visit the official World Naked Bike Ride website to get more information, but its security certificate has expired.) The first ride by that name seems to have taken place in 2003, although the sources are inconsistent. Wikipedia said the first ride was in 2001, but the cited source (Manifestación ciclonudista en España) is actually dated 2003. But let’s not have a giant stampede of nerds trying to log on and correct the Wikipedia entry, because the discrepancy really isn’t all that significant. Get a life, dorks! Besides, I already fixed it.
So this joins my previous contributions to Wikipedia correcting articles such as those on the Idaho official state song, United States v. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton, Baba Yaga, the Insular Cases, Matilda of Flanders, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, Henry V, Jack the Ripper suspects, Restatements of the Law, and coulrophobia (fear of clowns). I am pleased with this list.
Anyway, the first “World Naked Bike Ride” by that name seems to have taken place in 2003. Similar social/protest bike events were held in other places before that, and San Francisco’s “Critical Mass” has been annoying drivers here since 1992. But, while one who fails to look away in time will generally see naked riders within a Critical Mass, nudity is not part of the organizing principle. Not so with the World Naked Bike Ride, which now includes sub-events in dozens of cities around the world.
The one in Portland, said to be the world’s largest, has been known as “Portland World Naked Bike Ride” (PDXWNBR or just WNBR) for many years. In June, Umbrella, the non-profit that organizes the event, said it would take a one-year hiatus to retrench and reorganize in order to deal with the up to 10,000 naked riders (!) who want to participate. This is why its website says the next ride will be in 2025. So, the Portland World Naked Bike Ride was off.
But in July, someone declared on Instagram that “the World Naked Bike Ride Portland is on.” And even though this person—who’s unaffiliated with the Portland World Naked Bike Ride—had plainly moved the word “Portland” to the other end of the name, PDXWNBR organizers were still concerned that a “WNBRPDX” might confuse people. Hence, this letter:
WNBR requests that other rides refrain from using “world naked bike ride,” “WNBR,” or similar to describe or promote their Bike Summer, aka Pedalpalooza ride. This is in order to avoid confusion for participants that may mistakenly think a similarly named ride is associated with WNBR, Umbrella Project, or otherwise connected to Umbrella’s, 501c3, nonprofit status.
Note that PDXWNBR was not demanding that no naked bike ride take place. It wouldn’t have the authority to do that, for one thing—not even the authorities to. Unless the law has changed, protesting in the nude has been held legally protected “speech” in Oregon. See, e.g., “TSA: Wants to See You Naked, Complains When You Get That Way” (Apr. 18, 2012) (discussing man who dropped trou at Portland’s airport, was charged with “disorderly conduct,” and was later acquitted by a state court that held this was “symbolic nudity”). But people who wanted to ride probably wouldn’t have stayed home anyway. PDXWNBR was only asking that its “competitor” not use a name that might cause confusion.
It probably does have the ability to stop that, but doesn’t seem to have tried to exercise it. Because a “World Naked Bike Ride” did happen on September 21, apparently under that name (I am trying to confirm). It was much smaller than in previous years, and according to BikePortland the “general vibe” was different (less festive). But participants still numbered in the hundreds, which is probably enough to make BikePortland’s term “flesh-filled spectacle” accurate.
BikePortland has posted a video of this year’s protest on its YouTube channel, and the writer did a post containing his favorite pictures from the past 20 years of the event. Of course there are at least some images there that will be difficult to un-see, so you have been warned.
