Naked people will be biking around Toronto on Saturday. Here’s why they’ve been doing it for 20 years

Naked people will be biking around Toronto on Saturday. Here’s why they’ve been doing it for 20 years


The clothing-optional ride has been generating strange looks for two decades. It’s still going strong.

On Saturday, Sean O’Rourke will participate in the Toronto naked bike ride for the first time.
The 63-year-old from Oakville has cerebral palsy and will be riding in his powered wheelchair. “I want to show people that people with disabilities are no different from anybody else,” O’Rourke said in an email.

It’s one of the many reasons why hundreds of people will be biking around the city naked this weekend. Advocating for reduced oil consumption, improved bike safety and increased body positivity, riders will traverse a nearly three-hour loop along some of Toronto’s busiest streets while baring it all for the ride’s 20th anniversary.

Organizer Gene Dare expects more than the 220 people who took part in last year’s event, although most participants only ride once. The ride will begin at 1 p.m. on the waterfront at Coronation Park before looping down Queen Street, through Kensington Market, around the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University and past Scotiabank Arena.

Dare recommends some best practices. He asks that riders cover their seats if they’re renting a bike. He tries to avoid as much construction as possible, because the dust gets everywhere and dries the body out. And because of the length of the ride, he recommends using the washroom before leaving.



He would know. Dare has been participating in the ride since 2009 and took over organizing two years later. He’s seen it all in his time leading it — a woman watching the ride from her dentist chair, a streetcar driver stopping to catch a better glimpse — and is proud to be running things again this year.

Why do it at all? Because people pay attention if you’re naked.

“It’s a shock value,” Dare said. “You can get people riding with their clothes on in the daytime and nobody really notices … But you get a nude person coming down the road and all of a sudden you spot something out of the ordinary and you stop and you look.”

More rubbernecked stares means more attention on the ride’s causes. Bikers chant “less gas, more ass” as they ride.



Most people cheer and record videos as the bikers pass, Dare said. Some call 911, but Dare warns the police in advance that they’ll be biking through the city.

Toronto police did not weigh in on the legality of the event when pressed by the Star. “Cyclists go out on their own and have to obey traffic signals,” a spokesperson said by email. “Officers will use their discretion when enforcing the law, as they do at any public event.”

Bike Share Toronto has its own guidance for those who may be renting a bike.

“Though we don’t encourage it, we understand that some riders will use the system in this manner,” director Justin Hanna said in a statement to the Star. “As a matter of common courtesy and hygiene, we strongly ask and encourage those riders to wipe down the seats and handlebars after their ride so that they are sanitized for the next rider.”

And if people do have an issue? Just try to keep up.

“There’s no time for people to be against us,” Dare said. “By the time they see us, it’s kind of too late.”

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