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Your Petro Metro WNBR finally got around to making a Twitter account. This is (or will soon become) the best way to get details on upcoming rides and other events.

Tweets by htownwnbr

dbc here.

Last weekend (9-10 October), about a dozen of H-Town’s WNBR crowd got to experience Austin’s ride. All interurban rivalries and inferiority complexes aside, it was fantastic, I must admit: about 175 riders, most of them Full Monty, with a good mix genders and diverse ages and ethnicities. The topper for me was the brief dance party atop Doug Sahm Hill—not because I’m a dancer, but because it felt like genuine community.

I must throw major props to the crew that facilitated this ride for planning a good route and limiting the potential for chaos. Props also to Austin for the positive reactions we encountered throughout the ride.

The route ending up covering a little more than 10 miles, visiting neighborhoods from North University to the south shore of Lady Bird Lake. There were some stops and long pauses built in for riders to rest and to let the rear guard catch up. There were very few noticeable problems: One rider cramped up about a third of the way through, and some volunteers had to stay with him while the ride continued. The presence of a sag wagon to get the rider and his bike to the next stop might have made that episode less painful. A segment on East 6th Street was mentioned at the start but never happened; after Doug Sahm Hill, we had to mix with a thick throng leaving the Austin City Limits Festival on the pedestrian bridge—not the best timing. There are plans for a “postmortem” to figure out improvements.

The only real law enforcement scare came when we hit the Capitol grounds. We got through the north gate while the security staff was still figuring out what to do about us; we rode a half-circle around the building, passed under the cordon on the south side, & continued southward toward the Colorado River by a very indirect route.

Reformatting H-Town WNBR

Now that we’ve had time to recover from the ride and process how it went, we H-Towners can and should discuss what we might do to increase ridership here. My view is that we’ll have to make some substantial changes. WNBR H-Town has its own traditions & conventions, but it may be time to let some of them go.

Here is one scenario I could suggest: Continue to have two rides, the Main Ride and the Victory Lap, but eliminate most or all of the pub stops from one of the two. For example:

• Main Ride: Make it shorter, announce the route & approximate times of our appearances in the various entertainment corridors (such as Midtown, EaDo, NoDo, Washington Avenue), and have an after-party at the Start/Finish location.
• Victory Lap: Keep it 12-15 miles, with three refreshment stops along the way, and keep the route under wraps until the night of (as we usually do).

The marathon rides we have had here since 2011 can be a bit daunting to folks who don’t ride bikes regularly. (I felt like a non-regular rider on those hills in Austin, partly because I haven’t been riding as much as I had pre-COVID, partly because hills in Houston/H-Town are practically non-existent.) We have kept the rides long in order to make appearances in as many (mostly Inner Loop) districts as possible. I enjoy this format, but I can understand that not everyone does.

One of our regulars has suggested that we should host some monthly fun/social rides, perhaps involving costumery or a Bare As You Dare angle. We might even start this as a subgroup within other, existing group rides. This could help build the WNBR community that we need here. I hope to begin these rides in February or March 2022.

Burn Fat, Not Fossil Fuel

This ride has always focused on three main messages: against fossil fuels and car culture, for safe transportation alternatives, and for bodily freedom. We live in a society, especially in Greater Houston, that makes personal motor vehicles a necessity for most, so it’s easy to let the fossil fuel part slide. However, the climate crisis is intensifying, now affecting affluent countries more than ever. Letting that part slide is tantamount to saying, It’s too depressing even to contemplate, we’ve already passed the tipping point, and there’s no hope left, so let’s ride around nekkid just for funsies while we’re still alive.

While the Austin ride did not ignore the environmental aspect of WNBR, that aspect was de-emphasized. ; however, because Austin’s is the oldest and largest ride in Texas, it attracted riders who drove or flew in not just from out of town but from out of state. Burning fossil fuels to participate in a protest ride against the burning of fossil fuels is, well, not in keeping with the spirit of the ride, again IMHO.

A naked group ride through the city is great fun.

A naked group ride through the city to advocate for cleaner, safer transport options is great fun with a purpose.

A naked group ride through your own city is the ideal way to get the message out in as many places as possible.

I can think of no city that needs to hear this message more than Houston does.

Chicago is an example of a city whose organizers insist on maintaining the ecological component. They choose a Start/Finish with no (or expensive) parking nearby so that riders must cycle or ride public transit to get there.

One of the ATX riders has mentioned, via the Meetup event, that he hopes (finally!) to get a WNBR group up and running in Dallas or Greater DFW. I hope to help him in that effort. In a Metroplex of 4 million-plus, DFW peeps shouldn’t have to travel 200 miles for an event of this kind.

Photos courtesy of John Runnels (Mother Dog Studios), Tad F., and Michael C.

Photos by John Runnels, who apologizes for the blurriness in some of the photos taken as darkness fell.

During this past Saturday’s ride, fellow WNBR facilitator Andrea & I had an inspired conversation after we got to The New Potato. My takeaway from the conversation is that it behooves us to graduate our WNBR from an event to a community. That community is already partly in place, although some of the usual crowd was not with us Saturday.

Part of what that community would look like is that people who participate in it would have roles & teams. The roles would make use of our individual strengths & talents to get necessary stuff done. The teams would provide some backup in case one or more persons cannot fulfill their role.

Organizing a ride of this type consists of, among other tasks:

• Logistical Planning
• Artwork
• Publicity
• Ride Management (tasks performed during the ride, such as corking traffic)
• Catering

Regarding the last item in the list: A few riders didn’t have dinner prior to this ride, we didn’t have a chance to get any along the way. One of the advantages of Super Happy Fun Land, our traditional starting point, is the nearby Flakey’s Pizza truck. It would be advantageous to have something to nibble on before we take off.

Whether or not you were with us Saturday night, please let us know if & how you’d like to volunteer for future H-Town WNBRs. You can use the Comments section below or the Discussion threads on this Facebook event.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to show the world your…dedication to safe, human-powered transportation!

Mother Dog Studios, 720 Walnut, Warehouse District
Prep at 7 pm
Ride at 9 pm
Return at (approx.) 1 am

If you can’t be there for takeoff at 9, we’ll try to keep you posted on our progress via this Facebook event.

DBC Sez: Are you planning to participate in the World Naked Bike Ride in Houston this year? If so, please give yourself 25 minutes (not necessarily all at once) to watch this presentation, which is chock-full of useful information. About two days after it was uploaded to YouTube it had about 250 views, which demonstrates the power of WNBR. I don’t think anything I’ve every posted, except the occasional item on Facebook, has drawn that many hits.

Just a few of the important things covered (see what I did there?):

• The route—it is not fully decided, but it will include areas of Inner Loop Houston that would be directly affected (or entirely erased) by the North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP) as currently designed.
• Some important talking points in case anyone asks you why the expansion of I-45 is a bad idea.
• Opportunities to volunteer in one of several roles to make the ride run more smoothly.
• A checklist of stuff you might want to bring.
• A checklist of stuff you absolutely should bring: lights, footwear, COVID masks, & textiles to cover your important things.
• Safety tips, such as riding in pairs or small groups and not leaving anyone in your small group behind.
• The complete language of the City of Houston’s ordinance regarding Public Nudity.

Bookmark this page if you want to keep up with dates continent-wide as they are set or reset, or if the ride is canceled.

These are the confirmed dates we have so far. All dates are subject to change. All dates are Saturdays unless otherwise noted. There may be more cities added to this table as we get closer to June.

Note: In some cities, the event has evolved from an annual protest/celebration ride to several times a year. These are cities in which public nudity is, if no completely legal, at least tolerated: San Francisco CA, Portland OR, and Seattle WA.

You may find more information at the WNBR Wiki, if the organizers for the various cities actually bother to maintain their pages. The H-Town entry is here.

Ramble on in small groups this year, because BikeHouston’s annual Moonlight Bicycle Ramble will not be the usual group of a thousand-plus cyclists. It’s a pandemic thing.

For the 49th annual Ramble, WNBR Houston is hosting a small-group ride on Halloween night, which happens to feature a full moon this year: in costume, Bare As You Dare, or both. We are strongly recommending that you register for the ride in order to participate, mostly because BikeHouston is a badass organization that needs funding to keep influencing safe thoroughfares for all in Space City. Registration costs $35; you can pick up a t-shirt and ride packet for an additional $10.

The WNBR group will meet in a to-be-announced portion of Stude Park, located on the north bank of Buffalo Bayou in Woodland Heights. You can follow the Facebook event for updates.

Chicago Still No Longer Planning to Ride

Update, 10 October 2020: To no great surprise, Chicago announced earlier this week that the 10 October ride had been canceled.

We’re sorry if any information you received from this site prompted you to travel to Chicago this past weekend, only to discover that the WNBR wasn’t happening, or to make plans to visit Philadelphia at the end of this month. Some cursory research this morning has turned up new information about the rides the Cities of Wind and Brotherly Love.

Philadelphia’s organizers have announced that the situation is not safe enough to ride as planned on 29 August. Rather than push the date back, and then possibly push the date back again, they have decided to cancel for 2020.

Chicago’s crew has not given up, setting the new date at 10 October. Any later than that risks weather that would discourage all but the hardiest riders. (World Naked-Except-for-This-Parka Bike Ride, anyone?)

In the spirit of the WNBR Movement, the Chicago organizers remind prospective riders not to burn fossil fuels getting to the ride. The starting location remains unannounced until just before the day of the ride, and it will not provide parking for motor vehicles.

Conditions for group rides seem to be better in Canada. Vancouver BC, where WNBR originated (North American version), appears to have had a successful ride on Saturday the 8th. Montréal QC had two rides, afternoon and evening, all the way back on 18 July; somehow we missed that.