World Naked Bike Ride comes to Southampton! Other UK locations — York, Manchester, London, Brighton

In the fourth year of this imag­i­na­tive and spec­tac­u­lar envi­ron­men­tal protest, The World Naked Bike Ride is to see its first event in Southamp­ton on Fri­day 8 June.

World Naked Bikeride 'stop raping the planet'In the fourth year of this imag­i­na­tive and spec­tac­u­lar envi­ron­men­tal protest, The World Naked Bike Ride is to see its first event in Southamp­ton on Fri­day 8 June.

On the week­end of 8–10 June 2007, in over 40 cities world­wide, peo­ple will be rid­ing bikes naked to cel­e­brate cycling and the human body. In the UK, the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR, www.worldnakedbikeride.org) is bar­ing all in Lon­don and Brighton on Sat­ur­day 9 June; and Southamp­ton, Man­ches­ter and York the day before, on Fri­day 8 June. The ride demon­strates the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of cyclists on the road and is a protest against oil depen­den­cy. Cyclists and skaters are encour­aged to “be there, as bare as you dare”.

Prob­a­bly the biggest world­wide naked protest in his­to­ry, WNBR dif­fers from oth­er mass cycle events because of its aston­ish­ing naked ele­ment. Accord­ing to the organ­is­ers, most bystanders expe­ri­ence a com­bined feel­ing of “amuse­ment, shock and dis­be­lief”.

Southampton’s ride will take place on Fri­day evening, to allow par­tic­i­pants to also ride in Brighton and Lon­don on the fol­low­ing day should they wish.

The WNBR dress code is “as bare as you dare” — par­tic­i­pants are encour­aged to wear “as lit­tle as they feel con­fi­dent with”. Join­ing the ful­ly nude con­tin­gent, some rid­ers in Lon­don and Brighton last year wore shorts, bras, swimwear, body paint, wigs, sun­glass­es etc. Most wear footwear and bring bags to car­ry clothes. Body paint­ing and adorn­ment, cus­tomised bikes and oth­er cre­ative expres­sion are all strong­ly encour­aged.

WNBR cel­e­brates the indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of peo­ple’s bod­ies. Rid­ers of all ages, sizes, builds and appear­ances are there­fore wel­come to par­tic­i­pate with dig­ni­ty and respect. “Most rid­ers find the expe­ri­ence exhil­a­rat­ing, lib­er­at­ing, empow­er­ing. I’ve yet to find any­one who didn’t enjoy it” says Southamp­ton res­i­dent Nat Rav­elle, who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Lon­don and Brighton rides in pre­vi­ous years. “At the same time, it makes a great state­ment about the most vital issue of our times: curb­ing our exces­sive use of oil to ensure the future of the plan­et.”

WNBR Southamp­ton will take place on the evening of Fri­day 8 June. Rid­ers will meet at 6pm on Southamp­ton Com­mon – off High­field Road, oppo­site the junc­tion with Omder­man Road. The route will pro­ceed along Portswood Road and onwards through the city cen­tre, and return­ing up the mag­nif­i­cent Avenue to the start loca­tion.

More details of the Southamp­ton ride can be found at http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/southampton

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, con­tact Rob, southampton@bikenaked.org