Brisbane
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Next ride
Date: Saturday 21 March 2009
Time: 2pm
Location: bicycle path outside North Boondall train station
Ride Details
The ride will will assemble at 2pm on Saturday the 21st of March 2009. The assembly location will be at the bicycle path outside North Boondall train station with the take off time being 4 pm as we will be having body painting.
Nimbin rides on Saturday the 7th of March 2009 and Byron Bay rides on Saturday the 14th of March 2009. Nimbin and Byron Bay are within commuting distance of Brisbane so keen participants can ride in all 3 of these places.
The rides will be clothing optional. You can wear whatever you want to or as little as nothing. Try to challenge yourself but do not frighten yourself to bits. Wear whatever makes you feel comfortable at the time. You can always take it off or put it on as you like.
Here are a few tips:
- 1) Wear plenty of sunscreen and a helmet as well as some sensible shoes for the ride.
- 2) If for any reason the police converge on this event and try to arrest you, *do not* resist arrest or obstruct them in any way. After all, this is a peaceful, non-violent demonstration. Police do not want to be seen dragging naked people away (it looks very silly) and we will be having people with camcorders filming the whole time.
- 3) If you find by-standers heckling you, then smile, laugh, and wave them off.
- 4) No sexual behaviour of any kind will be tolerated during this event. We are out to show people that we support public morality as far as sexual mores are concerned. Anyone who tries to exploit this event for sexual opportunism such as swing clubs, or makes unwanted advances towards any other punter whether they are naked or not will be ordered to leave instantly.
- 5) Keep on message: Peacefully expose the vulnerability of cyclists, humanity and nature in the face of cars, aggression, consumerism and non-renewable energy. The event is not about nudism or nude recreation. If a naturist is a nude environmentalist then the event is a place for naturists.
- 6) If you wish to photograph anyone, ask permission from them first. Do not photograph anybody under 16 who may at the event without securing permission from their chaperone.
Planning
Dario Western, (WNBR Brisbane Organiser) has volunteered to organise the WNBR in Brisbane in 2009 and they welcome any offers of help with this task. People interested in participating or helping organise the 2009 WNBR in Brisbane should join the discussion group and post a message saying what they have in mind to help.
Important: we do not have the WNBR in exactly the same location every year and the assembly location for 2009 is yet to be decided. If you have ideas for an assembly place join the discussion group and post a message or take part in the poll.
Media enquiries
Please contact Dario Western, (WNBR Brisbane Organiser).
Publicity: flyers, posters, images etc
This is the current flyer, poster and BIG POSTER to be used for the WNBR 2009 (the Brisilian Triangle) Nimbin, Byron Bay and Brisbane to help promote participation. Please print these, pass them out and stick them up where people will see them. Why not colour one in and stick it to your refrigerator?
Flyer
Poster
BIG POSTER
Australia
These are the current flyer, poster and BIG POSTER to be used for the WNBR Australia 2009 to help promote participation. Please print these and stick them up where people will see them. Why not colour one in and stick it to your refrigerator?
Flyer
Poster
BIG POSTER
Superceded publicity: flyers, posters, images etc
These are the most recently superceded flyer, poster and BIG POSTER used for the WNBR Brisbane 2008 to help promote participation.
Earlier superceded 2008 flyer, poster and BIG POSTER
History
2009
Date: Saturday 21 March 2009
Time: 2.00
Location: Boondall Wetlands, North Boondall
This was the third World Naked Bike Ride for Brisbane, and the final one for Australia for 2009. Dario Western once again was charged with the responsibility of organising it. The publicity for it this year was minimal with advertising being done in bike shops, on 612-ABC Brisbane, and on internet sites. Dario sent a colleague Katie Dowling from 4ZZZ's Radical Radio community to North Boondall station at 2pm to assemble any interested riders between then and 2.30 pm to gather at the start of the path at Blackwood Road. Also present at the event was local artist, painter and nudist activist Ken Wenzel, journalism student James Weir from QUT, and Shayne Maxwell who is the Senior Sergeant of the Boondall Police. Both James and the local police talked to the group for a while, and permitted everybody to ride down the path as long as the genital areas were covered. All the participants wore g-strings. The ride lasted about 50 minutes going through the Wetlands and stopping just before the refuse tip at Nudgee Road. A young latecomer joined in on the ride on the way back, and we encountered a few clothed riders and pedestrians on the path but they were not at all fazed by our nakedness.
The police had left by the time we got back to base, and then Katie, Dario and another rider Ian Hayward who has attended the Queensland bike rides since they began went to the Nudgee Beach hotel for drinks.
There were seven people in all at this event, and no spectators. Events photographer and peace activist Tony Robertson briefly turned up to take some photos of the riders. Dario has decided to host the event in Brisbane again for next year, and is also working on a documentary about nudity in Brisbane called "Brisbane Bares" in which the issues surrounding the World Naked Bike Ride and the law and the Civil Liberties Union will also be discussed in it. Added to that he is also going to embark on a much more progressive marketing and promotional campaign to have it somewhere closer to the city in order to attract a larger crowd and more local and national media attention.
The Brisbane Naked Bike Ride also fell on the same day as the Queensland state elections, in which Anna Bligh of the Labor Party retained her seat as Premier.
Dario is also calling for more volunteers to help him organise and promote the 2010 bike ride in Brisbane. It is unsure as to where it is going to be held as yet, but he is encouraging interested parties to join the Yahoo!, Myspace and Facebook groups for the event which can be found on this site.
There will be a few photos being posted to the Flickr group as well as the Yahoo! Group, so stay tuned for them.
2008
Date: Saturday 8 March 2008
Time: 3.15
Location: North Wynnum Esplanade, Elanora Park, Wynnum
The 2008 ride was the second time Brisbane had participated in the ride. Unlike 2007, this year was a more sombre and subdued event with an even stricter police presence than last year. Dario assembled the film maker, photographers and body painters at the cul-de-sac in Crown Street at 2.45 before two friends had alerted him to six police cars already being assembled in the park.
The ride did not start until 4:20 pm in which five men and one woman rode. The police threatened all the riders with arrest if they went nude, including the woman going topfree. In the end, the riders backed down and took to the track wearing their shorts and sandals with various slogans more pertinent to naturism than oil dependency painted on them. One girl in her late teens tried to join the ride 10 minutes after take off and removed her top but was shouted down by the police, and eventually left the site 15 minutes later. Dario chose not to ride as a protest against the small turnout and the lack of female participants.
Dario did some brief filming of the participants, including film maker Charles McFarland and assistant Eleanor Embury.
There was no after ride party as the local pubs were reluctant to hire out a private bar for dress optional functions (unlike the Regatta last year).
The World Naked Bike Ride has received quite a lot of negative remarks with traditional nudists and naturists in Brisbane regarding the 'shock' value of public nudity to draw attention to political and environmental causes. With the exception of Free Beaches Australia and several festivals where nudity is allowed or at least tolerated, the Brisbane WNBR will no longer be reaching out to anyone who is involved with the nudist community.
Dario is planning to host an alternative bike ride in the future which will only be promoted via word of mouth to college and university students, social activists, feminists, and underground media like Brisbane Times and The Independent including 4ZZZ radio and The Australian Naturist magazine. The venue will only be revealed to those who fully confirm their presence there on the day via email or SMS.
This will largely protest against the burning of fossil fuels, the current public nudity laws in Queensland and the legal right for girls and woman to go topfree in the same social environments and contexts that guys are outside of beaches.
The event will only go ahead if at least 100 riders will confirm they will be there on the day.
2007
Date: Saturday 10 March 2007
Time: 4pm
Location: ABC Studios, 600 Coronation Drive, Toowong
The 2007 ride was the first for Brisbane.
The Indooroopilly police were assembled on Coronation Drive at Toowong at approximately 3.10pm with the photographers and film makers turning up half an hour later. The riders started to arrive about after 4pm for body painting as well as talking to the people at 4ZZZ radio, Channel 10, and the Westside News. 32 riders participated.
Post-ride party
We all had our post ride party at the Regatta Hotel afterwards. The duty manager kindly reserved the Cellar Bar downstairs for us. We discussed plans for next year's ride as well as impromptu public nude stagings and plans for starting a young adults naturist group in Brisbane this year. At one stage, some of us nuded up for a photograph. One young lady took part in the photo, but she was not comfortable with going the full monty just yet. Nevertheless it was a great opportunity to renew some old friendships and forge a few new ones too. Byron Bay film maker Charles McFarland attended the event and included 10 minute footage on his latest DVD "Lily's Fantastic Summer 1" available from his site at http://www.synetechvideo.com The video contains two girls from the bike ride, Lily Barlow and Laura Kearns having fun at his place and riding their bikes fully naked down the main highway in Byron.
Photos
2007
- Photos at WNBR Australia (official site) © Tony Robertson
- Flickr: Photos by Tony Robertson Note: all the flickr photos are on the WNBR Australia (official site) and you need to sign in to flickr to view the flickr photos.
Media coverage
- News.com.au, 12 Feb 2007: "Nude cyclists to ride Brisbane streets"
- Sunday Mail, 13 Feb 2007: "Riders told to cover up"
- ABC Brisbane, 15 Feb 2007: "Nude bike ride divides Brisbane"
- H&E Naturist, Apr 2007: "Socks appeal" (p44, in Nudes, Prudes and Attitudes section)
- CCN Online, 28 Mar 2007 Nudists take Brisbane for a ride
Links
Website/s
Discussion group/s
- WNBR Brisbane Yahoo! group
- WNBR Brisbane Facebook group
Endorsement
The following organisations support and/or endorse the WNBR in Brisbane:
