More like Critical Ass am I right?

[sabotabby]

I got to see the naked bike ride today! That was very—not the sort of thing that you want to see while having lunch, believe it or not. But I was done my mango mock chicken and it stayed down so that was good.

I tried to snap a picture with the Infernal Device but it didn't save properly. Consider your eyeballs spared. The Infernal Device is kinder than I would have been.

Anyway, I say this as someone quite supportive of Critical Mass and its variants—how does one actually ride a bike naked? It sounds like a recipe for pure pain.

In lieu of that brain-scarring image, I offer another:



On an unrelated note: Bear lost — and now "kidnappers" want $10,000 in cupcakes. This is one of those rare headlines where reading the whole article actually makes it funnier. Because the cupcakes have to be gluten-free.

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

There's a fallacy in that chart! None of the women Rand wrote looked like her! Not even the most autobiographical character in "We The Living".

But uh, that may be redundant, seeing as it's a Randroid flow-chart...

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

And by resemble I assume they meant ideologically, but that isn't how it reads... Just sayin'

[sabotabby]

I read it as "ideologically resemble," since there was a great discrepancy between her own appearance and those of her fictional stand-ins.

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Ha! I had a terrible email exchange with the World Naked Bike Ride listserv that ended with me never wanting to participate in the ride. Basically, I joined the list, posted something that made it clear I was a woman, and was inundated with messages from creepy dudes (not the active ones on the list) asking me to go to nudist resorts with them. When the list members bemoaned the lack of women participating in the ride and on the list, I emailed in saying that this might be the reason. Then I was basically attacked because the active members took this as an insult to them - as if they were lecherous perverts! And when I said that, no, it was lurkers on the list emailing me, they told me I was probably misinterpreting the emails and that I was lucky people were interested in me.

HA! So I quit, and I imagine that WNBR is still quite the sausage-fest.

And on that note, I have somewhere in my archives a great photo of an ex of mine, who happens to be black, riding in front of a whole bunch of white guys under the sign for "European Meats and Sausages", which is unintentionally hilarious. If I find it, I'll show you.

And thus, I have never ridden a bike naked, but I can't imagine it would be comfortable. I mean, my bike gets dirty and greasy and I don't want that anywhere near my private parts.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

The WNBR is "clothig optional;" you're not required to be totally naked.

That said, the band I'm in—the RMO—had planned to possibly play the send-off of this ride in NYC but decided against it because some—not all—of the organizers were total assholes.

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it seems like there's a large intersection around "stuff that involves nudity" and "complete jerks". (I was going to say assholes, but...)

[sabotabby]

There were a few women, but yeah, there was a lot of meat and sausage. (Best photo ever. Your ex is very hot, by the way.)

I don't see the appeal of nudism, honestly. Like, cool if people are into it, but I don't see why folks would want to. Maybe I'm just a prude.

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

I could introduce you to my ex, but I do not endorse his politics or his treatment of women. But he is cute, isn't he?

Cycling + nudism, meh. Nudism in other settings, I can get into. We can talk about it sometime, although of course we don't have to.

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

The ones in Vancouver are very mixed-gender. Listservs, though, just like the rest of the Internet, are notorious for obnoxious "OMG IT'S A GIRL!" behaviour.

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Vancouver always seems to have good mixed gender naked stuff. From what I've heard, anyway.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

The awesomest TA I've ever had was involved with the World Naked Bike Ride. I did not ask him how he managed it.

[sabotabby]

It just looks painful. Especially for guys. I don't get it.

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

I don't think it would be especially painful for guys. Our "goodies" are pretty much out of the way as they are when we are wearing pants/kilts/whatever.
Not that I'm tempted to try it.

Naked bike riding

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if I've told this story to you before, online or in-person; I'm getting towards my late youth and it's getting harder and harder (no pun intended) to remember what stories I've told to whom.

Anyway ...

I was a couple or four years younger than in the icon above, but more than a couple or four years older than anything else chronologically appropriate.

I was probably 9 or 10. We lived in the country. By "country", I mean our backyard was bush that kept going for about 150 kilometres until you hit Georgian Bay. And my parents, not nudists, were nevertheless of the clothing-optional spirit. We took multi-generational saunas and swam naked any time we were unlikely to be observed by uptight and/or perverted neighbours.

And yes, I had a bike. I was also in a rather possessive phase about "my" private property! Didn't like strangers wondering the paths around our house and in our woods.

One day, I determined to patrol our boundaries and so hoped on my bike, drove down the driveway to the public (gravel) road and cycled past a few neighbours' cottages before looping back onto our property and a narrow path (blazed more than half-a-century before by my maternal great-grandmother (Jules Pavio's mum, come to think of it! But I really digress) that circled through the woods and back towards home.

Halfway there, what (but what!) should I spy, but some stranger sauntering along the path towards me, moseying along as if he had every right to be on Our Private Property.

That he was a grown man and I but a child did not stiffle my outrage. No sirree! I stopped my bike to confront the stranger, hopped off and stood before him, arms akimbo and eyes (no doubt) a'fire.

"This," I pronounced with all the smug righteousnous of pre-pubescent youth, "is private property.!"

The interloper didn't say a word. He just stared at me, as if the apparition of such a young sentry were utterly beyond his ken. But he did not flee, he only kept staring, not so much in fear as in shock. The sort of shock that will cause all but the most arrogant and righteous person to take a breath and look around, in case they've missed something they ought to know about.

Objectively, the entire incident probably didn't last even 30 second, but subjectively, my realization that something odd was happening to my discovery of what that was, felt like 90.

But I finally did realize why the Trespasser was paying so little attention to my words and so much attention ... to my nine-year-old's penis just a-danglin' while I lectured him on the importance of respecting private property.

Quite simply, I had forgotten to put on some clothes before I went for a bike ride. I was a sun-bronzed nature boy living in the bush and it had just slipped my mind that it might become an issue.

I did, though, realize my faux pas and my sense of authority expired like ... well, I'm sure you can think of a euphemism.

I got back on the machine, circled wide 'round the strange, and decided he at least could tresspass to his heart's content, at least until I could find some pants.

Re: Naked bike riding

[sabotabby]

Hahaha. No, you have certainly not told me that story before.

So how does one ride on a bike naked?

Re: Naked bike riding

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

So how does one ride on a bike naked?

Very carefully, of course. bah dump-bumb

In all seriousness, as best I can remember, and from the times I've gone commando, it's just a question of making sure one doesn't sit one's "luggage". Otherwise, there's not real difference between an intense fear of falling off the damned machine.

Re: Naked bike riding

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

That's a cool story. I want to live somewhere like that (I live in central London - no chance of naked bicycling except on the Naked Bike Ride!).

Re: Naked bike riding

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I suspect there aren't many places in England where that kind of isolation is possible. Mind you, we also had to keep an eye out for bears, so there were (extremely cute, admitedly) downsides to the situation.

Re: Naked bike riding

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

This. Is. An. AWESOME. Story.

Thank you.

Re: Naked bike riding

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You've given me reason to fancy it up as an actual post of my own. Exeunt, purring

Re: Naked bike riding

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Huzzah!

[infintysquared.livejournal.com]

Huzzah! I'd planned to join the Chicago Naked Bike Ride, but I got a last-minute invitation to play my music as ambiance for a friend's art exhibit party.

I've enjoyed several iterations of the local Critical Mass, however, and would definitely do that again.

[sabotabby]

I'm all for Critical Mass. I want to join the skateboard one this year.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I embarrassed my boyfriend and my wee brother (then 16) by dragging them along to the naked bike ride then hooting with laughter and pointing at naked men with silly willies. I almost exploded in hysterics when a man with a huge hard-on went running across the lawn at one point. Boyfriend and brother were upset and said I was demeaning men. So now I am worried that I am just a perv. But really, it was so refreshing to see naked men on display to be ridiculed for once! (Most of the women were only top-naked, thankfully. I think they wore denim shorts or whatever, so not painful on bike, and the men, dunno, they were mostly middle aged and revelling in it - probably hang their bits to one side...eergh.)
Afterwards we saw a naked man leaning back against a pompous statue, legs akimbo and smoking a pipe, while police smiled happily nearby.
Really worth it for a day out of eccentric cheer!

[sabotabby]

Cocks are hilarious. If you can't laugh at one, you're probably not mature enough to be wielding one.

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

Example of said hilarity:
http://www.darcomic.org/2005/12/06/gloup/