By my count, there were about 120 people who participated in the ride. I found it quite surprising though, that all of the participants were men with the exception of about only ten women. I had expected more women to be there, though it didn't surprise me at all that there were more men than women.
In the morning when I arrived it was a very warm and sunny day. There were already a few naked guys there so I could have gotten naked right away, yet I just took my shirt off at first. Previously, I had been naked outside in front of people at a designated clothing optional campsite for gay men, but this was the very first time that I would be naked in front of the general public as well as the first time being naked in a mixed gender environment, so it took me a while to get my nerve up to do it. Eventually I took my shorts off so that all I was left wearing were shoes and a hat, which I kept on for the bike ride.
The ride itself started at 1pm, but later in the day about halfway through the bike ride the sky became overcast and there was no sun, so it suddenly got very damp and cold! As such I had quite a bit of extreme shrinkage going on which was quite embarrassing. I could have simply put my shorts back on at any of the rest stops yet I really wanted to do the entire bike route while in my birthday suit, so I just endured the embarrassment of having a shrinky dinky. LOL It was definitely a very cold day to be outside naked but I pressed on to finish the ride, and I'm glad that I did!
Thankfully, I wasn't the only guy who had to cope with the shrinkage issue, so I felt a bit of a connection with the group in that regard as we were all braving the cold together. You may have heard of the expression "grower not a shower", and well that's me, but it's hard to grow anything when it's that cold out! It seemed like all the guys who were growers had the same issue as I did, meanwhile all the showers among us seemed totally unaffected by the cold, which to be honest I thought wasn't fair at all! LOL Some guys have all the luck!
In all, the ride was four hours long. The event website said it would be two or three hours long, so I was definitely not expecting four! By the time it ended it was 5pm. Had it not ended then I would have stopped to get dressed as I couldn't take the cold any longer. In fact, as soon as we got back to the starting point and the ride was over I got dressed right away. Of course, I only had a pair of shorts and a tank top to wear so it didn't help very much, but I was still glad not to be naked anymore which is the opposite of how I usually feel. I'd be naked all the time if it were possible. I was especially glad to get back to my car as it was much warmer inside. I even turned on the heat for a while.
Despite the cold, I'm very happy that I did it! It was quite a surreal experience to be riding naked though downtown Toronto with crowds of people watching and cheering from the sidelines. I really wasn't certain what to expect the public's reaction to be, so I was quite pleasantly surprised that most people responded in a supportive way, realizing that it was just lighthearted, harmless fun. At certain points in the route people had even lined up on the sides of the streets as though watching a parade.
A lot of people cheered or waved as we went buy, and some people in cars honked in support. There were less than a dozen angry or rude people, so they were quite outnumbered by the majority of people who laughed along and had fun with it. It's nice to know that society, at least in Toronto, isn't as prudish as I thought it was.
Below are some pictures that I took during the ride at the various rest stops. As you can see there were natural bodies in all shapes and sizes:
Text and photos copyright Mikey Artelle, 2024
