Got Caught In The Portland Naked Bike Ride Saturday Night

hmm, i would have been more miffed about being without my dinner for an hour longer than necessary as for declining morals, pfft, it's just people without clothes on. it's not like they're stealing or hurting anyone.

mattthemuppet said:

hmm, i would have been more miffed about being without my dinner for an hour longer than necessary as for declining morals, pfft, it's just people without clothes on. it's not like they're stealing or hurting anyone.

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Well, depending on the geometry of the bike seat, some of them may be hurting themselves

to be honest, it brings tears to my eyes. My bike seats fit well but there's no way I'd want to ride them al fresco.

We never made it to her friends restaurant. She talked to him the next day and he had a place full of naked people (not customers) using his bathroom. Drove the real customers away. He ran out of toilet paper and he said he almost had a small riot on his hands.

They keep the location of the bike ride secret until just before the ride starts. I don't think that's fair to people and businesses along the route. We sure would have stayed away if we had known that we would have gotten stuck in the middle of it.

I'm sure as heck going to stay out of Portland period next year when they are doing this again. Once was enough for me.

I'm an enthusiastic bike rider, and my politics are probably not as conservative as some on Hobby Machinist. But I wish this event would go away. I don't think it does anything positive for bicyclists, but it sure does annoy the heck out many people who would rather not see more than they bargained for.

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I'm not offended by the freedom of expression. It's a free country and I'm proud to be one of the lucky ones that lives here.

What got to me was sitting at a stop light for over an hour trying to cross the street. I have to obey the traffic signals, so should they.

Organized rides don't have to be this much of a problem for drivers. The Horribly Hilly Hundreds I'm part of is a fundraising event with a lot of thoughtful organization behind it. I'd never claim it's hassle free for our local residents, but we have adequate staff to keep order. My predecessors built a beautiful ski warming house for Blue Mound State Park with several year's worth of proceeds.

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Sound's like livin' in a red neck, gun totin', Bible thumpin' town has its advantages.

Walt said:

Organized rides don't have to be this much of a problem for drivers. The Horribly Hilly Hundreds I'm part of is a fundraising event with a lot of thoughtful organization behind it. I'd never claim it's hassle free for our local residents, but we have adequate staff to keep order. My predecessors built a beautiful ski warming house for Blue Mound State Park with several year's worth of proceeds.

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I live on the route and it isn't hassle free. It was enough of a hassle that the residents requested a meeting with the county to discuss solutions to the problem. At the time, there were five or six organizations that chose to use our countryside as their personal racing/touring course in a little over a month. There was testimony from one resident that a person was denied access to their own driveway. (Note: this was not necessarily the Horrible Hilly Hundreds.) The hearing finally resulted in the county passing an ordinance regulating bicycle events.

To be fair, since the ordinance was passed, thing have become more sane.

Cyclists, at least some of them, seem to feel that once they are in group, the road belongs to them and the rule of the road don't apply to them. I see very few cyclists come to a stop at a stop sign and many times I have seen them run red lights.Sec. 346.80 of the Wisconsin Statutes specifically forbid cyclists riding more than three abreast on public roads and two abreast only when the normal and reasonable movement of vehicular traffic is not impeded. They are further required to ride as close to the right hand side of the roadway as practical This has definitely not been the case with most of the cyclist that I have seen.

alloy, I can empathize your and your grandaughter's discomfort.

alloy said:

Well...................if that wasn't bad enough my grand daughter was with me.

I was at Jim Dawson's during the day working on my mill and left early to have dinner with my grand daughter before shes leaves for school in Hawaii for 3 years.

To say the least it was uncomfortable. She wanted to go to a new place her friend just opened. We got caught at a stop light and sat there for over an hour before some kind person stopped the bike riders and let us cross the street to get the heck out of there. I'd say over 2000 of them passed us and the line seemed endless.

As naked "people" passed right by us our conversation was interesting. We tried everything to keep off the subject in front of us, but finally we just gave in and laughed about it.

There were some interesting bikes there, and even more interesting people.

I'm not sure I'd do it again on purpose, but we have a memory we can laugh about for many years to come.

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I wasn't aware they even made clothes for naked bikes.

OOOOHHH- now I get it. LOL.