Portland’s 2015 World Naked Bike Ride starts June 27 in Colonel Summers Park

Gearing up in Normandale Park in 2014.
(Photo by J. Maus/BikePortland)

Portland’s annual Pedalpalooza festival starts on Thursday and will wrap up June 27 with Oregon’s biggest pay-what-you-will bike ride of the year, which also happens to be the largest clothing-optional bike ride in the world.

The 2015 edition of Portland’s World Naked Bike Ride will begin gathering in Colonel Summers Park, at Southeast 17th Avenue and Taylor Street, at 8 p.m. The roll-out will start at 9 p.m. and the ride is so big it usually takes an hour or more before all of the participants are moving.

Carl Larson, one of the ride’s organizers, said in an email that this year’s route (which is secret as usual, to minimize disruptions) is “not a loop but the endpoint is only a mile away.”

Last year’s ride drew an estimated 9,000 mostly unclothed participants, which probably made it the biggest in the ride’s history.

You can learn more on the Facebook event for this year’s ride and the WNBR’s official web site.

The WNBR is, of course, the biggest single ride in Pedalpalooza, Portland’s annual festival of bike fun. The festival consists entirely of rides and other events submitted by ordinary bike users, and though the printed version of the calendar will be included in this week’s Portland Mercury, anyone can still add to the online version for free. So don’t hold back — create your own fun this summer and watch your city join in.

Interested in helping make the WNBR the body-positive, all-welcoming, safe-and-fun event it needs to remain? The unpaid organizers are always looking for volunteers. You can sign up here.