The 2011 Philly Naked Bike Ride – Part 2 of 2: The Riders’ view point.

In her article, contributor and blogger Claudia Gehtu covered the 2011 Philly Naked Bike Ride from the point of view of the spectators who lined up the course of the PNBR.

I thought I would give you a feel for what it was like to ride in the PNBR.

I suggest that you check the 48 pictures from the 2011 Philly Naked Bike Ride taken by Alex Lowy from Lowy Photography Studio in  Narbeth PA and me that are on display in the Photo Gallery.

The images will display in a clearer and larger format if you simply click on each photo.

I had fun, the friends that came to the Naked Ride with me, whether naked or partially clothed had fun, the spectators along the way seemed to approve and had fun as well.
In short: it was a blast. No alcohol or illicit substances necessary. Pure, Naked FUN.

I think the pictures you will see in the Photo Gallery clearly reflect this observation.

I have been wondering why is the Philly Naked Bike Ride such a fun event?

After all, it is a scary proposal to ride a bike or a skateboard or a unicycle, naked. Imagine a second what a fall for a naked skateboarded or a naked cyclist could be like?

Here are thousands of people who make themselves totally vulnerable by exposing the humaneness of the most hidden and intimate parts of their body. What is so fun about that?

I offer that there are three components to the FUN of the Naked Bike Ride:

Breaching the normal code of social conduct can be a difficult experience. When brushing against the Breaching Wall, people can experience discomfort, anxiety and anger. This moment of discomfort, when a new participant to the PNBR considers removing the last piece of clothing, that moment is the “Breaching Wall”.

“People start to feel anxious or uncomfortable with performing unusually prosocial acts, while breaking the normal code of social conduct in the process.”

This is a direct quote from my friend Simon Fox.  Simon develops the “Keep me Company Company” project at PlayLab London. Simon wrote a fascinating article on the subject of the “Breaching Wall” that you can find in the PlayLab Blog.

“Burn fat – not Oil”, “More Pube – Less Fumes”, “Love your Body”: these are just a sample of the messages 2011 PNBR riders painted on their body. These are clearly “prosocial” messages. Nothing aggressive, nothing anti-social is being communicated here.

In my case, in 2009, when I took part to the first PNBR, I had decided to wear a Speedo kind of shorts. Midway through the ride, I noticed two twenty something men who were wearing their underwears on their ankles while pedaling on their bides. At that point, I realized that it was time to let go of my own anxiety surrounding my social inhibitions.

According to Wikipedia, one of the etymologies of the word “Carnival” is that it comes from the late Latin expression “carne vale”, which means “farewell to meat”. The “Carne vale” were the last days when one could eat meat before the fasting of Lent. The word carne may also be translated as flesh, so suggesting carne vale as “a farewell to the flesh”, a phrase actually embraced by certain carnival celebrants who encourage letting go of your former (or everyday) self and embracing the carefree nature of the festival.

If I were to compress both proposed definitions above into one, I would say that a “Carnival” is a farewell to a rich, overindulgent diet and it is a letting go of your former everyday self to embrace your more carefree self.

Deciding to let go of your expensive, gas guzzling car for the everyday efforts and freedom of bicycle riding, that decision deserves a celebration, a Carnival.

Carnival typically involve parades and masquerading. In that respect, the Philly Naked Bike Ride as much as the Mummer’s parade is a Carnival. In the PNBR, people first undress, let go of their former, everyday self, then paint and disguising themselves.

The magic that makes the attendance to the PNBR grow from year to year is in the combination of the freedom arising from riding naked while parading in disguise.

The Naked Bike Ride helps thousands infringe a social norm by combining the excitement of the carnival with an expanded feeling of Freedom.

The success of the Naked Bike Ride is important because it showing one of the ways social activism can successfully alter a social norm and help people adopt more positive, more engaged positions.

Once your clothes are off, once you are in the Naked Bike Ride, quickly, very very quickly you come to realize that physically fit or not, with beauty marks, strange appendages, tattoos, piercings, scars, bold headed or hairy, in all the various shades of skin color from pale to yellow, tan, gold, brown, black and pink/red, with purple hair Mohawk or not, we all still very much look human.

So, will you come to the Philly Naked Bike Ride next year?

It is FUN.