A Naked Bicycle Protest Is Also a Party. Is that Bad?

When political times get tough for liberals, a certain segment of Portland, Ore., reaches for protest in perhaps its barest form: They take off their clothes, climb onto bicycles and ride through the city.

They’ve been doing this since 2004. But this summer, they’re doing it twice.

The city now hosts two competing versions of the World Naked Bike Ride, a global movement that began in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the early 2000s to call attention to oil dependence, bicycle safety and body positivity.

The split has become a surprisingly revealing proxy for a debate playing out across the American left: When does a protest stop being a protest? Is building community itself a form of resistance? If everyone is having too much fun, have you lost the plot?

“Is riding a bike and participating in a group bike ride about normalizing bicycling, or is it about changing the world?” said Adonia Lugo, a Los Angeles-based anthropologist who has studied and participated in bicycle protest culture.

What started as a fun — if not earnest — protest, gradually became one of the marquee events in a summer cycling calendar so crowded that, on some weekends, riders can choose from a dozen themed rides celebrating hobbies, pop culture, politics or simply the pleasure of pedaling through the city on a warm evening.

By the early 2020s, as many as 10,000 riders were turning out. Police temporarily closed streets. Organizers sold merchandise. Tourists came to watch.

When organizers paused the event in 2024 to rethink how to safely manage its growing popularity, another group decided Portland didn’t simply need a *** bike ride, it needed one that prioritized protesting and refused any traffic management help from police. The result: Two *** rides.

“I personally can’t go on a bike ride that’s a protest that involves the police,” said Moorland Moss, a Portland bicyclist who helped launch the alternative ride. “It does not make any sense at all.”

At the O.G. ride two weeks ago, however, the mood suggested that celebration and protest need not be mutually exclusive.

Bicycles were festooned with disco balls, elaborate lighting and speakers booming pop music. Riders in various states of undress played hacky sack, juggled and danced alongside a samba troupe.

“To be able to do something like this, on a beautiful night, it’s a celebration of being alive,” said Mike Bonnet, who has participated with his husband for more than a decade.

To many riders, that joyful sense of community — and the unapologetic embrace of every imaginable body type — is itself an act of resistance.

“I see people with scars. People who’ve gone through huge weight loss. People in the midst of transitioning,” said Micah Bicker, who attended with friends. “No one is walking around in body dysmorphia here.”

The newer ride, scheduled for Saturday night, will have a similar mix of *** or body-painted riders on bikes that have been decorated and brightly lit.

But it does not include any police protection and is planned to begin with speakers reminding participants that they’re gathering to oppose fossil fuel dependence, the power of oligarchs and large oil companies, and the vulnerability that many cyclists and pedestrians feel in a world built for cars.

They will also bike through the parking garage of a mall slated for demolition to protest its redevelopment.

“There is a big difference between a bunch of people getting together and having a party and a bunch of people getting together to have a protest with a common cause and a common conscience,” Moorland Moss said.

That’s not to suggest protest can’t be joyful. Last fall, the newer organizers called an emergency autumn ride to protest federal immigration enforcement and the threatened use of National Guard troops in Portland.

Several thousand people, many *** except for clear plastic ponchos, pedaled through a rainstorm to the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement building to join people engaging in a more traditional protest.

As federal officers watched from the roof, some putting down their weapons to take iPhone photos, a dance party broke out.

The speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, later quipped that Portland’s *** cyclists were “the most threatening thing I’ve seen” during demonstrations against immigration enforcement around the country.

“I mean, it’s getting really ugly,” he said, possibly tongue-in-cheek.

The modern bicycle protest emerged alongside gay rights activism, environmental justice campaigns and other direct-action movements in the 1970s.

Over time, though, many bicycle advocates shifted from confrontation to collaboration, working with city planners to build protected bike lanes and safer streets. In places like Portland, bicycling itself gradually became less a symbol of rebellion than of good urban planning and, some critics argued, gentrification.

“That’s part of this dichotomy within bicycle advocacy,” Ms. Lugo said.

Jonathan Maus, a journalist who has chronicled Portland’s cycling culture for decades, said outsiders may be missing the bigger picture when it comes to the competing rides.

“To me, having a community where *** bike riding is still this powerful, connected, absurd, wonderful thing, that shows a healthy culture,” he said. “It should be celebrated and studied, not scoffed at.”