[Pedro the Fisherman]

Here is a background news story about the event...

Welcome to the Fremont Solstice Parade.

Families, couples and groups of friends lined the parade route through Fremont Saturday afternoon to see the giant papier-mache floats and colorful characters come flooding down the streets of the neighborhood

But first came the uninvited guests.

The official Solstice Day Parade didn't start until after noon, but the naked cyclists were preparing hours beforehand.

The parade crashers gathered as early as 7 a.m. in a vacant lot on 2nd Avenue and Battery Street. Onlookers with digital cameras watched as the body painters stood in line to turn their skin into a canvas.

Jim Horton has been manning the body spray paint gun for five years, and although he has never been a cyclist himself, he has participated in the official parade.

"I don't come up with the ideas, I'll just do whatever they ask for," he said while painting a geisha costume on a young woman. "This is the first time I've ever attempted a kimono before."

By 9:30 a.m. he had already sprayed dozens of bodies, he said.

Dave Yount, an unofficial leader of the naked bicyclists, said there were over 300 people flying down the street this year clad in painted-on costumes. Dr. Seuss characters, the family from "The Incredibles," Batman and the Joker and other various invented personalities made up the army of guerrilla cyclists who have been crashing the parade since the early 1990s.

"The great change is the artistic levels that just go up and up every year," he said.

Because the "painting party" was located downtown, the riders had to cross nearly three miles of public streets, turning heads of tourists and shoppers in the area. Yount said this was the longest route they have ever taken to the parade.

"For me, that's my favorite part," he said. "We just ride down, smiling and waving at people."


Here is a podcast interview with two riders...http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/v...ves/141293.asp

Here are some shots I came across, not Flikr ones. I have a whole lot more to post too!!