It was another amazing year for Seattle’s most creative bike ride. Wonderful weather greeted the hundreds and maybe more than 1,000 people who stripped down, painted up and biked ahead of the annual Fremont Solstice Parade Saturday.
This ride is notoriously difficult to count, and as far as I can tell, there is no official number (if anyone has a better number, let us know in the comments). But 2014 was at least as big as 2013, and I’d estimate somewhere around the 1,000 mark. That’s a whole lot of spontaneous art and gutsy self-expression!
Often referred to as the “naked bike ride,” the Solstice bike ride feature people in various levels of body paint and costuming. The ride has been growing in size since the first people hopped on their bikes naked to streak the parade in the early 90s. But the scale of the ride has exploded in recent years, with painted people on bikes filling the streets of Fremont for blocks on end.
Seattle really knows how to welcome the summer.
There seemed to be fewer bike traffic jams during the ride. The surge in participants in 2013 overwhelmed the system last year, but this year the volunteer ride marshals seemed ready for a big turnout. Good job!
I did not take any photos of the ride, but the slideshow below is a non-curated gallery created from a Flickr search. Obviously, it is NSFW.
