DavidDavin said:
Quote:
These UK rides don't seem to be dead yet.
I wish the same could be said for rides on the European continent. It is a mystery to me that we don't see the same level of eager participation in Germany, France, Scandinavia, Russia, etc. Madrids ride in the past has been great, but have there been any pics from this year yet? But overall, these rides are not that big a deal in these other countries
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Klondike, in addition to lamenting the fading of the continental European rides in recent years, you've mentioned in past posts how the New York City ride has never seemed to gain traction.
Well, NYC, a city of more than eight-million people, had its 2015 ride last Saturday too, and fewer than two dozen riders showed up, and as far as I can tell only two of them were women. One thing I am sure of is that photographers, or crowds with smart phones, can't be blamed for scaring off potential riders. Nobody, but the assigned police, and a few passersby on the streets ever seem to pay any attention. Last year a couple of male riders were arrested for doing a "dickie dance"
at a busy intersection in the Greenwich Village area, The police were probably more concerned with the disruption of traffic, and the potential for causing an accident than any actual public nudity violations.
One news report claims that, last Saturday, nobody rode fully nude. It should be remembered that in NYC women can legally go fully topless anytime they want, and it appears that this year's two female riders did. Otherwise, the ride was a big dud.
At the other end of New York State, they did have a ride Saturday in Buffalo too, and unlike the NYC ride, it got plenty of local pre-ride publicity. But, as to actual ride coverage, only the local cable news channel appeared to have any, and watching the video clip, while it had a bigger turnout than NYC, it also appeared to be an almost exclusively male affair with only a few females visible in the clip.
Here are some links to coverage of the 2015 NYC ride:
http://gothamist.com/2015/06/14/phot..._w.php#photo-1
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/thing...bike-ride-2015
A news video of the 2015Buffalo ride:
http://www.twcnews.com/nys/buffalo/n...bike-ride.html