Controversy

The year 2001 and subsequent years were controversial for the naked cyclists, including several references to cyclists as "parade crashers". In 2001, police and parade organizers posted signs noting the laws against indecent exposure to warn cyclists of possible prosecution. Organizers claimed that the cyclists were getting in the way of the event's true hallmark: artistic freedom.[1] An editorial that same day (May 17, 2001) in The Seattle Times echoed this sentiment: "They have stolen the spotlight on a parade that is supposed to be about art, not about being unclothed. The Fremonters resent that. They do not want the nudists doing this. But they do not want them wrestled to the pavement by police, spoiling the atmosphere of their parade."[2]

Sentiments like the above frustrated the cyclists, who were at that time getting bodypainted. They also did not like being labeled nudists, as most of them were not.