What better way to celebrate Earth Day than with a nude bicycle ride through the often chilly city of San Francisco? The San Francisco contingent of the 7th Annual Earth Day World Naked Bike Ride will take place on April 22 at 11am. Riders will meet and disrobe at the northwest corner of the Ferry Building Farmer's Market by Starbucks. In other words: take off your clothes in front of a ton of people and hop on a bike.
The ride is scheduled to take place on the seventh anniversary (technically two days after the anniversary) of the British Petroleum Deep Horizon explosion and Macondo Well oil spill disaster that occurred on April 20, 2010.
The 15-mile ride will include pit stops, a planned photo opportunity at Ben & Jerry's on Haight Street, and a grand finish at Castro and 18th Streets. Participants can download the ride route on their smartphones here.
As for the nudity portion of the Earth Day event, organizers had this to say, "You decide how much bare you can dare, you can go all out in the joy of sun clad nakedness, go topless, bikinis, body paint or latex, leotard or lingerie, or tuxedos, whatever you feel like. For this ride, however, since an oil spill is the target of our angst, an appropriate statement can be made to mimic spilled oil. Nude riders can use black body paint splattered or coated. Those a little timid about nudity can use black trash bags that resemble spilled oil. Or you can be even more creative and artistic with black latex body paint to achieve a sheen and gloss that really looks like spilled oil. Since it is Earth Day we are celebrating the environment, so if you don't go the bare route or the oil spill look, then adorn yourself with green colors; shoes, hats, scarves, capes, whatever, to promote a greener way of life."
Got all that? Events like this are par for the course living in San Francisco. We're actually considering heading down there (fully-clothed, thank you very much) to check out participants' creative takes on these eclectic adornment suggestions. We're guessing the 22nd will be an especially Instagrammable day in the Naked City by the Bay.
How much bare can YOU dare?
Want more? Sign up here to stay in the know.