Montpelier

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See MontpelierNakedBikeRide.org for more information.

Next ride

Date: June TBD 2009
Time: TBD
Location: TBD, Montpelier

News

• 7 June 2008, Part II: We did it! 36 riders! Actually...make that 35 riders + 1 inline skater. And hundreds upon hundreds of cheering spectators! Nice job, everybody. Please contact the ride at 7june2008@montpeliernakedbikeride.org if you were a rider or a spectator and you have photos to share.
• 7 June 2008, Part I: Today's the day! 29 confirmed riders, and still counting...
• 6 June 2008: T-Minus 1 day - 27 riders and counting... The Montpelier WNBR & the Burlington WNBR are going to have synchronized start times! Very cool idea. Thanks, Burlington! It's official: The Montpelier ride will have a dedicated professional photographer for the event. That photo-op at the Statehouse never looked so good... SEE YOU TOMORROW!
• 5 June 2008: T-Minus 2 days - 27 riders and counting... (The potential time, date, and location conflict with the outdoor interment has been 100% RESOLVED to the church's satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of the Montpelier WNBR as well. Thanks to the media, one community member, and one rider who brought attention to the matter and offered suggestions and real solutions. This truly is a community event!)
• 4 June 2008: T-Minus 3 days - 27 riders and counting...
• 3 June 2008: T-Minus 4 days - 27 riders and counting...
• 2 June 2008: T-Minus 5 days - 26 riders and counting...
• 1 June 2008: T-Minus 6 days - 24 riders and counting...
• 31 May 2008: T-Minus EXACTLY one week! 21 confirmed riders, and still counting...
• 29 May 2008: Yet another time & date conflict! Sadly, there will be an outdoor interment in the yard in front of Christ Church at 2pm on June 7th. (Christ Church is the one across State Street from the P.O., for those of you playing the home game.) The deal we have made with the church is that in the stretch in which we are riding past their front yard, we will ride silently, be respectful, & basically tread as lightly as possible. Secondly, we will have to post a clothed non-cheering volunteer to stand on the sidewalk in front of the church & dissuade other WNBR spectators from standing right there & cheering. So... RIDERS: Ride silently at the intersection of State & Elm, please! SPECTATORS: No cheering or photography on the south side of State at Elm. Please cheer anywhere else!
• 27 May 2008: Front page of the Times Argus, baby!! (Our press rocks.)
• 24 May 2008: T-Minus EXACTLY 2 weeks! 17 riders, 3 from out of state, and rumor has it Brattleboro's "pissed" that we got a Naked Bike Ride before they did! :-D Look for the upcoming exclusive in the Times Argus, coming soon...
• 4 May 2008: Some milestones & big news this weekend. First of all, we have three more riders officially signed up! This brings our current ridership to 15--that's FIVE TIMES our strength last year. And we have our first riders coming from out-of-state to participate. Very cool. Also coming from out-of-state we may potentially have an official event photographer and a couple of filmmakers interested in recording the event! Wow!!
• 28 Apr 2008: Phew! Good thing the City & the PD like us...because Fashion Week & SculptCycle--the two UNRELATED events with whom we must share our date, time, & location--officially hate us! Sheesh! Ah well... (If there's a bright side, it's that the odds of the Montpelier WNBR having to share the date with either of these events next year are hopefully slim to none.)
• 14 Apr 2008: Hooray! The City of Montpelier and the Police Department have officially approved our parade permit application! The updated route--the one that is currently posted on our Web site (and the one that rides around a concurrent but unrelated event on State Street)--is the one that has been signed-off on by the City. Date & time remain June 7, gather at 1pm & ride at 2pm. So for any of you who have been fence-sitting, worrying about doing something illegal, rest assured that if you ride in the Montpelier WNBR...you'll be fine! (Provided you do not do anything indecent, immodest, or immoral while riding naked.) Now's the time to sign up! Join the ride!
• 4 Apr 2008: To avoid a block of State Street that will be closed the same day for an unrelated event (between Elm & Main), we re-scout & re-map the route. Just a slight detour around the intersection of State and Main--ride time and everything else will remain the same. See our event's homepage to check out the changes.
• 3 Apr 2008: Tonight we got our twelfth official rider signed up, exactly QUADRUPLING our numbers from last year! Wow!
• 31 Mar 2008: Fashion Week does not want to "share the road" with the WNBR, so we will have to modify our route slightly in order to avoid their festivities. Check back to this page and to our event's homepage for the latest on the route. We have also learned that SculptCycle is holding an event downtown the same day too. We may see if there's a fit for collaboration there. Stay tuned!
• 26 Mar 2008: Eleven confirmed riders to date! (One more and we will have quadrupled our numbers from last year.) Don't forget to send an email to 7june2008@montpeliernakedbikeride.org if you are planning to ride in this event. The email can be anonymous; we're just looking for an approximate head-count.
• 24 Mar 2008: We spoke to Chief Facos on the phone who wants to make certain we know about the street closure for Fashion Week on the same day. He has left it up to us to work it out with the organizers of Fashion Week: whether we change the time, the route, or blend the events for one block. We are to keep him apprised of our solution. Montpelier PD is awesome! Chief Facos is very supportive of biking in general, and the department supports an active Bike Patrol unit. He only wants to remind us of Chapter 11, Section 11-700 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Montpelier: "INDECENT EXPOSURE. No person shall publicly make an indecent, immodest or immoral exhibition of his person..." And we also get a second verbal confirmation that the City's old "bicycle registration" law will not be enforced.
• 11 Mar 2008: Just received word that our WNBR coincides with Fashion Week, which itself mandates a street closure downtown. Of course we can ride around Fashion Week, but would rather ride through it. What a transformative experience this could be: celebrating beautiful clothed bodies and celebrating beautiful naked bodies!
• 10 Mar 2008: 10 confirmed riders to date, including our first participant signed up via email who is completely unknown to us. That's already over three times our force last year... and it's early yet. Keep spreading the word!
• 5 Mar 2008: Our website, MontpelierNakedBikeRide.org, goes live!
• 29 Feb 2008: We meet with Sgt Martel of Montpelier PD to disclose route and event details to the jurisdiction. We are asked to fill out a parade application – although the ride is not a parade – which is still pending. We get verbal confirmation that the police will not enforce the old bike licensing law still on the books in Montpelier. The sergeant also says that he will speak to Burlington PD to see how they handle their WNBR. This is great news because Burlington does such a nice job of things, with everybody having a safe ride, and the whole jurisdiction behind it. Sgt Martel was also encouraging of us to get the word out to media so that Montpelier PD wouldn't have to field so many 9-1-1 calls.
• 6 Feb 2008: Freeride bicycle co-op agrees to be the start and end point of the ride, providing our indoor disrobing and rerobing space. The decision of the steering committee is unanimous, and the mechanics will be riding themselves!

Media coverage

2008

The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus

• 8 June 2008: Editorial Cartoons
• 8 June 2008: All sorts of buff stuff
• 5 June 2008: Naked question
• 27 May 2008: Naked Bike Ride to roll through Montpelier in June
  

Other Montpelier WNBR stories can be found at: WCAX, VPR, etc.

History

2008

Date: Saturday 7 June 2008
Time: Gathered at 1pm, Rode at 2pm
Location: Started at Freeride bike co-op and traversed 3-mile loop around downtown
Number of Riders: 36 (35 + 1 inline skater)
Duration: About 30 minutes
Weather: Sunny and hot
Reception: Largely positive: hundreds & hundreds of cheering spectators and "amateur photographers" filled the sidewalks of Montpelier. Thanks for your support! (If you have photos to share, please email the ride: 7june2008@montpeliernakedbikeride.org.) Thanks too to the City of Montpelier and to our Montpelier Police Bike Patrol escort for such a successful ride, and we'll see you in 2009!

2007

Date: Saturday 9 June 2007
Time: Rode at 4pm
Location: Started at Hunger Mountain Co-op and traversed downtown
Number of Riders: 3
Duration: About 20 minutes
Weather: Sunny and warm
Reception: Largely positive: lots of thumbs-up, smiles and verbal encouragement. But lots of 9-1-1 calls too :-(

Links

Website/s

• Montpelier Naked Bike Ride (.org)
• WNBR Vermont

Related links

• Freeride bicycle co-op
• Overheard In Montpelier blog

Nearby rides

• WNBR Burlington

Location information

• City of Montpelier
• Vermont state government site
• Wikipedia: Montpelier, Vermont
• Wikipedia: Vermont