The 2012 Fremont Solstice Parade naked bike ride was one for the record books. I have not been able to discern any official estimates, but at one point the entire length of 34th Ave from Fremont Ave to Stone Way was handlebar-to-handlebar with painted smiling people.
After the ride, one participant rode up to her friends and asked, “Is this utopia?” And I knew what she meant. The ride definitely achieved “Critical Ass” and seemed to pick up new participants during it’s ten miles of biking (we tracked it) starting with a pre-ride spin around Ballard before entering the Fremont Solstice Parade route. Once in the route, participants rode in loops, creating a dizzying mass of brightly-painted bodied on bikes moving in both directions at all times.
If I were to wage an estimate, I’d say 1,000 people participated (I’ve seen estimates from 700 to more than 1,000). At ten miles per person, that’s 10,000 naked miles pedaled in Seattle Saturday. That’s like biking from Seattle to Pittsburgh and back. Naked. Twice.
I love Seattle.
I didn’t get any photos from the ride, but here’s a slideshow from Flickr (obviously, it’s NSFW, unless your work is cool):
UPDATE: Here’s a good, non-pervy video from Blag Hag:
Nine to Five
So not only did I wake up at 7 a.m. to ride in the Solstice Parade, but I also signed up for Go Means Go’s annual Nine to Five all-night Solstice scavenger hunt. That, it turns out, was a silly thing to do. But I had a blast regardless.
The Nine to Five is just like the name suggests: The ride starts at sundown and ends at sunrise. Teams are given lists of items and photos to gather throughout the night. Each task has a point value, and the team with the most points at the end of the night wins.
Most of the well-over 90 participants were young, including lots of messenger types and the like (89 finished, 110 were registered at the start). But the winners by a landslide were a team of family biking and bike to school advocates who may be familiar to regular Seattle Bike Blog readers, including Julian from Totcycle and Anne and Tim from Car Free Days. Julian shared some of the trade secrets that led to the team’s three-peat victory:
Our #9to5 secrets: we’re old & have basements, married hoarders (ahem, collectors), ride cargo bikes. Oh, and sobriety. If only that night.
— Julian (@totcycle) June 18, 2012
The winners:
Comments
5 responses to “A naked and sleep-deprived day of Summer Solstice biking (NSFW)”
More evidence that bikes are finally making it into the mainstream!
I watched one youtube video of the bikers and it seemed like there was 5 solid minutes of bicycles riding in one direction. That’s a lot of bicyclists, so your guess of 1,000 people might be close to the mark.
I suspect that “we’re old” is code for “we have (or had) young kids and are used to not sleeping.”
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