Too bad the photo didn't copy on this article.



TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR
Police stop traffic on Dundas St. for a straggler after he had a problem with his chain during the World Naked Bike Ride, June 9, 2007.


World Naked Bike Ride cyclists doff duds to promote 2-wheeled solution to air pollution
Jun 10, 2007 04:30 AM
Paul Moloney
STAFF REPORTER


Nude bike riding is definitely a group activity.

As the Toronto version of the annual World Naked Bike Ride started assembling at Coronation Park yesterday, the turnout was looking weak.

Derek Birch may be a model whose work requires him to pose in the nude but he wasn't going to go all the way out there on the street without a crowd of fellow travellers.

"I'm not 100 per cent sure that I want to participate if there's only five of us," Birch said.

Preparations included asking three cops on bicycles, there to provide an escort, whether riders had to don something. Sandals?

Footwear would be good, the cops responded.

And please, don't flaunt anything.

An hour later, 17 riders, all male, all naked, rolled out of the park, attracting some finger pointing and bemused smiles as they made their way up Yonge St. to Bloor St., over to Spadina Ave. and back south to Kensington Market.

Why do they do it?

Depends who you ask, but it appears there's some idealism mixed with the exhibitionism.

"It's a protest against the smog and pollution," said artist Leif Harmsen.

"People think it might be rude to be naked," Harmsen said. "It's a great deal ruder to be spewing toxic gas out in front of everybody's face. It's beyond rude. It's an actual health issue.

"What we've doing is good clean fun, and it stands in stark naked contrast to the rather obscene car culture that we've developed."

To Birch, the ride is an attention-getting way to promote cycling.

"We need to encourage people to ride bicycles," he said. "We need to encourage freedom and happiness."

John Glennie is a nudist, and proud of it.

"If I could be, I'd be naked 24/7," said Glennie.

"You'd be surprised that more people are okay with nudity than the general public would admit," Glennie added.

The Niagara Falls resident said people's response to the ride is generally positive, even if they don't particularly wish to participate.

"If you have a cottage up north, the chances of going skinny-dipping at night are pretty good. People will get naked but they're not sure about a social setting necessarily. Me? It doesn't bother me."

In Montreal, demonstrators in the World Naked Bike Ride wearing bike helmets and birthday suits pedalled through the streets of the city's trendy Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood.

Elsewhere in Canada, nude cyclists took to the streets in Victoria, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Moncton, N.B.

Similar rides meant to draw attention to the harmful environmental effects of gas-powered vehicles were set throughout Europe as well as the United States, Japan and Mexico.