Road Apples by Tim Sanders
June 20, 2011

Pedaling toward the Apocalypse

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Is our culture in decline? Have we, as human beings, lost our way? Is the planet facing extinction due to mankind’s inability to make intelligent choices? Do cell phones negatively affect mathematical ability?

Those are, of course, rhetorical questions. Most of you already know that the answer to all ... er ... all three questions is: YES.

And if you were to ask for some positive proof that society is crumbling around us, I’d tell you to simply remember one word, and one word only. That one single, solitary word is: NAKED BICYCLISTS.

On Saturday, June 11, 2011, the prestigious WNBR held events in dozens of countries, including the UK, the Czech Republic, Canada, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and of course France. In case you didn’t know, WNBR is the World Naked Bike Ride organization, which has been around, organizing disorganized naked people and bicycles, since 2003. Naturally, following the lead of the more sophisticated tofu nibbling, honey cinnamon latte sipping loons around the globe, the United States now celebrates the annual event in cities like Portland, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, Tucson, Austin, St. Louis, St. Petersburg, and Piedmont, Alabama, to name just a few. (Okay, so I was only kidding about Piedmont.)

I was blissfully unaware of the weekend event, and of the large number of people involved, until I watched a short TV news segment on Monday. Further research revealed that the purpose of these annual naked bike rides is to call attention to important issues like the crucial need for humanity to abandon our unhealthy reliance on fossil fuels, the crucial need for sun screens with SPF ratings of 500 or higher, and in some cases the crucial need for exceptionally wide bicycle seats to prevent painful bicycle seat impactions.

I looked at some of the photos from Saturday’s event and yes, most of the participants were naked. But way too many of them were my age or older, and not in the best of shape, physically speaking. And a middle-aged naked dumpling wearing only tennis shoes and one of those goofy Flash Gordon bicycle helmets is not a striking image, only a very sad one. Oh sure, there were a few relatively young folks involved, but there seemed to be a disproportionate number of heavy-set ladies and elderly men. Many of them had signs painted on their naked backs, like one lady whose sign advised doing something very unladylike to a British Petroleum Corporation CEO. There was also a gentleman whose back read “No Emissions but my Own.” There didn’t appear to be anyone riding directly behind him.

Here are some very good reasons why naked bicycling is an excellent indicator of social deterioration:


• THE AGE FACTOR - When I was young, and adults were, for the most part, normal, bicycles were for kids. But if you were a serious, thoughtful young boy in the ‘50s or 60's, you had two very important goals in life. First, you hoped one day to have sex, and second, you wanted a driver’s license, which you foolishly believed would assure success with the sex thing. Bicycles were cool when you were ten, but even then many kids took a clothespin and attached a playing card to the bike frame near the rear spokes to produce that satisfying and manly BRAPPITY, BRAAP, BRAAP–IF YOU SHUT YOUR EYES YOU MIGHT THINK IT’S A MOTORCYCLE sound. And when you turned thirteen (fourteen, tops) you would not be caught dead on a bicycle. If you had to get somewhere, you took the old, reliable “Shoe Leather Express.” It was slower than a bicycle, but it allowed you to keep your manly dignity intact. When you finally got your driver’s license, the bicycle was, once and for all, relegated to the back of the garage, along with the clamp-on roller skates and the cap pistols. Adults with good sense simply did not ride bicycles. If my fifty-year-old dad had ridden my bicycle, down Middleville’s Main Street in broad daylight, I’d have been mortified. (If he’d ridden a bicycle down Main Street buck naked, with “MORE ASS, LESS GAS” painted on his back, I’d have left town while he was incarcerated, changed my name, and probably still be in therapy.)

• BICYCLE SAFETY - A safe bicycle is one that is left hanging in the basement behind a large sheet of plywood. People carry on about how unsafe motorcycles are, but compared to bicycles, motorcycles are veritable Sherman tanks. When I was of bicycling age, my buddies and I knew that riding with traffic in the middle of a busy street or highway was really stupid. We rode facing traffic, so that all 80 pounds of us on our 30 pound bicycles could see that 4,500 pound Buick Roadmaster headed toward us at 90 mph and get the heck off the road, onto the shoulder where we should ’ve been in the first place. Bicycles and highways were not compatible, and we knew it. And as to riding naked, even a twelve-year-old had better sense. I knew all too well that one fateful slip of the gears on my three-speed bike could result in crossbar damage to my personal area which might render me a soprano for the rest of my life. More importantly, I had seen myself naked and realized just how pitiful I would look in public that way, with or without a bicycle. My friend Scott Perkins and I did once ride our bikes about five miles out of town to Barlow Lake to go swimming. We did not have baskets on our bikes (only girls and sissies had baskets) so we wore our bathing suits and wrapped our towels around the handlebars. On the trip home, while pedaling furiously down Cherry Valley Road, my towel slipped down into my front spokes, which caused my bike to stop abruptly and launched me over the handlebars and onto the asphalt in my patented face first, spread-eagle, protective posture. Most of me was a mess, but the important parts, the parts down under those swimming trunks, were unscathed.


If you are a naked bicyclist, you need to put that silly little Daffy Duck bicycle helmet down there somewhere where it will protect your important parts. (Obviously, your head isn’t one of them.)