(Photo © J. Maus)
People from all over the world and still buzzing about Portland’s World Naked Bike Ride that happened Saturday night. By nearly all accounts it was a another solid success.
Before this one becomes history, there are a few things I wanted to share.
“We want to give our thanks to Bridgeport, the City of Portland, the Portland Police Bureau, Mark Ginsberg, She Bop, and the wonderful volunteers who made this possible.”
— Chris McCraw, volunteer organizer
First, please take a moment to appreciate the amazing volunteers who gave hundreds of hours to make it happen. Coordinated through grassroots bike fun group Shift, they spent months figuring out all the details so thousands of people could ride bikes naked and take part in this amazing community event unlike any other.
One of those volunteers, Chris “Fool” McCraw reckons he spent about 150 hours planning the event. Not looking for any accolades himself (his friend told me that figure), Chris wants to give thanks to others.
“We want to give our thanks to Bridgeport [after-party sponsor], the City of Portland, the Portland Police Bureau, Mark Ginsberg [partner in law firm that sponsored the ride], She Bop [ride sponsor], and the wonderful volunteers who made this possible.”
Another volunteer was Meghan Sinnott (who is also behind PDXByBike and many other awesome things). Meghan says they’ve gotten a huge response for the official World Naked Bike Ride poster and they’d be happy to sell you one (proceeds go to Shift and the WNBR) Here’s how to get one:
- They will be sold for $10 at the Multnomah County Bike Fair on Saturday, June 25th.
- You can email wnbr2011 [at] shift2bikes [dot] org to make an order
- They’ll be available for purchase at Bikeasaurus (1337 SE MLK Jr. Blvd) soon.
To get one of the official t-shirts that were sold at the event, you can also email wnbr2011 [at] shift2bikes [dot] org.
In our final bit of Naked Bike Ride news bits, Meghan told us this morning that local filmmaker Joe Biel filmed the entire ride last night. He’ll work with volunteers to count every person in hopes of making an official application to the Guinness Book of World Records.
I’m looking forward to the official tally after last year’s 13,000 estimate was questioned by many. My guess is that there were 8-9,000 people on the ride Saturday night.
Thanks again to everyone that helps make this ride possible. I just write about it and show up with my camera, but I know how hard they work. I also know that we shouldn’t take for granted how lucky we are to have a city that lets this happen so smoothly.
Thanks for reading.
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As the person who put together last year’s attempt at a head count, I am looking forward to the video count for this year’s ride.
Last year’s head count was supposed to use clickers and a video but the film crew had technical problems… and the clickers were later found to “skip” when used rapidly.
Last year’s estimate and process: http://blotter.vanvoice.com/2010/10/dare-to-bare-an-estimate-of-the-2010-portland-world-naked-bike-ride.html
Last year’s demographic survey: http://blotter.vanvoice.com/2010/10/gender-age-and-ethnicity-of-2010-world-naked-bike-ride-participants-in-portland-oregon.html
Marcus your counts from 2010 are suspect. You claimed that there were more people in the meetup space than the space could physically fit (less than 4 sq ft per person including their bicycle).
http://bikeportland.org/2010/06/20/an-estimated-13000-take-part-in-portlands-naked-bike-ride-35332#comment-1572267
No one seems to recollect seeing anyone counting last year. Further more, no one’s come forward to say “I was a counter”. You’ve chosen to remain silent when asked to identify your counters, or when your methods were questioned.
I don’t know what you really did last year. I fear that you might have not actually counted, and then bandied about an estimate which was a bit high.
That could put the event at risk. If the count comes back considerably lower this year and it fosters a perception that the ride is becoming less popular then it would be more difficult to get support from the variety of factions that are necessary to pull this event off.
The weather was WAY better last year and there was palpable bike fever in the air. Not so much this year.
Last year, I stood in the street along with at least several hundred others waiting to leave. Did you factor that into your square footage calculation?
Thanks to the volunteers, the sponsors, and everyone that came out. What an amazing night! again!
As for using *our* bodies on *our* streets, we don’t need permission, and no thanks are in order for “letting” us exercise our rights.
That said, thank you to the officers on duty for protecting us from cars, looking the other way while we peed, de-escalating potential conflict with spectators, and generally bringing courtesy and professionalism.
Had a blast – can’t wait to get a poster, too. 🙂
We had such a blast on Saturday and big thanks to everyone at SHIFT for putting on such a seamless event. Completely agree with Bhance – lucky we live in such a great city. On the down side, we need your help recovering four dance lights that were swiped from the DJ area Sat. night. They are Astera AL-7 spots and they belong to one of our wonderful vendors that worked so hard to throw such an awesome party. These lights are useless without their proprietary recharging system and remote programming system so there should be no reason to hang on to them.
If you or someone you know might have one of them, PLEASE get it returned as soon as possible, absolutely no questions asked. Return the fixtures to the offices of R-West at 1430 SE 3rd Ave., on the 3rd floor.
Also – if anyone lost anything at the after party – please feel free to email mollyg@r-west.com and we can take a look to get it back to you ASAP.
Cheers!
Thats a classy poster. Nice artwork. Need to get one.
Excellent work by the organizers – congratulations, folks on another fantastic event!
Great route this year! I didn’t have to walk once, and it felt a lot less packed in. It was also great going over the Hawthorne Bridge to the westside rather than the Burnside, because it bottlenecked there last year, which got a little awkward. Awesome planning and overall another great WNBR!
naked bike ride shirt sales? that’s funny.
As stated last year, last year’s attempt was a first attempt and far from rigorous.
The issues with the counters “skipping” when used rapidly was noted and made public. The preferred camera method had technical issues and was not used, as discussed last year.
No one has ever asked me to “identify” the counters. In addition, anyone leaving the north gate who saw a large man in a black jacket with a media pass and yellow “asbestos” volunteer sash… well that was me. I also stayed way into the morning doing clean up and sorting recycling that was tossed into the trash cans (a very messy job).
Additionally, this year’s ride was moved from the kick off position of Pedalplooza and held on a day that included rain in the morning and afternoon–those factors undoubtedly affected turnout.
Marcus, who were your counters in 2010?
What’s the beef?
Marcus’s “methodology” is posted. He’s upfront with the using four unpaid PSU students, problems in getting an “accurate” count and identifies several stumbling blocks his group struggled with, including huge issues with the counters they used.
It was a solid effort that others could build off of in getting a formal, prefect count. So why are you upset?
I’m upset because we’re going to go from “13,000” to perhaps 7,000 in one year and that’s going to potentially ruin the party.
To continue the dialogue on this topic, you may email me at: Marcus.Griffith@gmail.com or we can discuss the complications of trying to ascertain an accurate WNBR count over coffee. Back and forth with an anonymous party is not effective communication to address your concerns.
just to respond, I saw Rev Phil counting for quite awhile at last year’s naked ride. Don’t know how far he got
To all the volunteers that put this on: THANK YOU!!! This year’s ride was a lot less chaotic than last year’s. The crowd felt smaller this year but it was still thousands of people showing up to protest cars. I hope next year’s ride is moved back to the Saturday of Pedalplooza.
WNBR posters are now officially available at BIKEASAURUS! We are located at 1337 SE MLK, at Madison (under the Hawthorne Bridge.) Hours are Wed-Fri 11-7, Sat-Sun 11-5.