All those bare bottoms!

Manchester's Naked Bike Ride took place on 13th June and, by all accounts, went very well indeed.

My beloved rode with them for the second time, and I went along to watch. I would have joined in, but I had to mind the kids and I'm not that confident on my bike yet anyway. Besides, it helped to have someone who wasn't riding who would be able to take photos.

The ride caused quite a stir, with lots of excited and embarrassed giggling from bystanders as the cyclists passed - with only the occasional "Ugh they're naked and there's kids about. That's disgusting!" I noted that that kind of comment mainly seemed to come from young men out with girlfriends, including one Asian lad with his arm round his non-Asian girlfriend. One Asian family I passed in the wake of the ride up Market Street weren't reacting like that at all. They were all grinning hugely, laughing at mum who was wiping tears of laughter on her headscarf.

I got some fab photos of the event, sadly not of the laughing family: I felt I'd be intruding on them if I whipped out my camera and started snapping. All my pics of the event are here.

Here's a couple to be going on with.

If you watched Granada news that night, you'd have seen Seán doing his warm-up exercises before the ride while Meg, the organiser, was interviewed. The vid for that is still on the ITV local news website - search for local news (Greater Manchester) and sort by most recent as WNBR is way down the rear end (har har) of the alphabetical listing. Seán and I were also interviewed (along with Meg, other participants and spectators) by independent filmmakers G7UK - go watch the video here.

I'm looking forward to joining in next year!