Rationale

NOTE: This entire page was written for the 2010 naked ride, not the 2011 ride. Most of the rationale holds true again this year, but the specific dates are different and some of the wording might be confusing if you didn't know this was about last year's ride. Activating the WayBack machine… now!

There are many changes this year. There are reasons for all of the changes. Read on, O Curious Cyclist!

The naked ride has traditionally been held on the first Saturday during Pedalpalooza. This year, that would be June 12. Unfortunately, that's also the day of the Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade. Every traffic cop in the city will start working at 2:00am that day. The naked ride has grown so large that we need police corking the route for us but if we followed our tradition then all of the cops on our route would be working 24 hours straight. That's too much to ask.

So we looked at other days. We wanted to keep it on a Saturday because there's also a daytime naked ride, and riding naked on a weekday afternoon just seemed awkward. Saturday June 5 was out because it is the same night as the Rose Festival Starlight Parade. That pretty much leaves June 19 as the only option.

We also looked at moving the dates of Pedalpalooza. Shifting Pedalpalooza one week later, so June 19 was the first Saturday, causes problems because the Multnomah County Bike Fair (on the last Saturday of Pedalpalooza) would occur during the July 4 weekend.

So we're stuck with a naked ride on the middle weekend.

UPDATE: After we settled on June 19 for the WNBR date, the organizer of the Daytime WNBR chose to hold that event on the 12th anyway (which should be interesting because the parade will be ending around that time). Also, MCBF might move to Sunday June 27. Maybe, maybe not. But we're committed to the 19th for the big naked ride.

In previous years, the naked ride has always coincided with the Pedalpalooza Kickoff Dance Party. It seems silly to have a Kickoff Dance Party in the middle of Pedalpalooza though.

Also, the dance party always consumes 90% of the effort. As the crowds became huge, the organizational effort also became huge, and we just can't do it anymore. Even 10% (okay 25% – there was some overlap of effort) for the ride itself is a strain.

It has become clear that most people come for the ride, not the party. Many people who came last year thought the street scene was the party. So be it!

Another consideration is that Portland has very few venues big enough to hold a party for 12,500 people – especially when you can't afford to pay for it. By skipping the party, we can make the starting location be outdoors, which should simplify our venue search considerably.

We won't be throwing a party, but we still want to party! We need to be in one place to start the ride in a cohesive way, but after that there's no reason we can't scatter. In fact, the Portland Police would prefer that we scattered afterward; that way they can forget about us and get back to business as usual. Having many afterparties gives us a reason to scatter.

For afterparties to work, the ride needs to finish well before “last call”. If we start it at 10pm, then the afterparties should be starting up around midnight, which works out pretty well.

The beer sales have always been a fundraiser for the party. If there is no party, then we don't need the fundraiser. So we can avoid the whole OLCC permitting process, hooray!

It also means we aren't responsible for keeping people sober, so you can bring your own beer. This is not an invitation to get drunk! Its dangerous enough riding naked with thousands of inexperienced cyclists, as “normal” people rush out to cheer and give high-fives. We don't need drunk cyclists added to the mix. All we're saying is that we are not legally obligated to exclude outside alcohol this year.