Ramona_W

LoP answered but I'm going to chime in with my two cents as well. Some people go all the way naked with the bike seat they have and some purchase souvenir seat covers at the starting point along with- strangely enough- commemorative T-shirts. I went with black mesh shorts that one might wear over a swimsuit. I was prepared to ride in just shoes, helmet, and glitter but my employer is rather conservative and, as I had no idea who all might be taking pix and where they might end up, I decided to go the more modest route. (I've been experimenting with padded and nonpadded shorts and the padded bike saddle and will probably soon try padded shorts and an unpadded saddle and- surprisingly enough- the most comfortable I've been going over bumps and slightly rough terrain was last night.) There were some young men riding alongside us for a while who were wearing whatever the traditional knotted diaper looking thing sumo wrestlers wear- though they were, in fact, built nothing like the fighters- and that looked way more uncomfortable than true nakedness probably would have been.

The ride itself was amazing. There were bikes with speakers on them pumping out some cool tunes. Partway into the ride, we passed a band and naked mosh pit. Along both sides of all the streets we rode, there were people lined up to cheer or high five the riders. (So far as I've heard, only two riders flipped their bikes while high-fiving bystanders. LOL) We were one of, I believe, three tandems and having a tandem caused comments even among the other naked cyclists.

One of the more surreal aspects of the ride for me was that we rode down a street called Belmont. Belmont is part of the route I used to take when I went to get my daughter from college or to take her back. She always gave me a hard time because I went slowly so I could check out all the bikes parked in front of the businesses. Although I made that trip many times and although I, for some reason, wanted to do the Naked Bike Ride as soon as I knew it existed, I never on any of those trips imagined that someday I would be riding down that street on a bike and certainly never envisioned doing it nearly naked.

Two of the funnier things that happened were: Just as we were leaving and had discovered the cable issue, LoP turned to me and said "You don't by chance have a multitool on you, do you?" Umm...No.

The other was that the battery for the lamp LoP had been wearing on his head went dead shortly before the end of the ride. Luckily, I had bought 10 glow stick bracelets at WalMart earlier in the day and we were able to attach these to the handlebar bag for light. We made quite the sight for the neighbors who came out in the middle of the night to smoke in front of their apartments: Five minutes to midnight, covered in glitter, barely dressed, riding a bike decorated with/lit up by glowing bracelets.


Thanks so much, LoP for making last night possible.