Michael Caughey and a few dozen of his closest friends are going on a bike ride on Saturday night. And some of them might be naked.
Houston’s version of the World Naked Bike Ride is set to start with a pre-party at 6 p.m. Saturday, September 12, at Super Happy Fun Land on Polk. The 11-mile ride begins at 8 p.m. Cyclists are encouraged to be as “bare as they dare” as they promote safer streets, sustainable transportation and body freedom and positivity.
Caughey usually does the naked ride fully nude, but since he’s a marshal, he says he may wear a vest to identify himself as someone who can hold up traffic. He has a cloth seat cover that can be removed and washed, and he said the fabric from the seat against his skin is no different than wearing shorts.
“We’re always naked when we’re riding a bicycle,” he said. “We are unprotected from the traveling public. We don’t have airbags and seatbelts.”
Caughey acknowledges that nudity isn’t for everyone, but explained that it’s a political statement symbolizing the vulnerability of cyclists and pedestrians. It gets the attention of media and residents who wouldn’t otherwise know about the safety challenges that cyclists face, he says.
“It’s not about exposing sexual organs or anything,” he said. “It’s about vulnerability. People don’t understand it. It’s like cooking bacon naked. We don’t have an apron to protect us. When we’re riding a bicycle, we sometimes don’t have anything but a stripe on the road, and that doesn’t protect us. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.”
Caughey has been in one accident, on a feeder road alongside the Katy Freeway. He was hit by a car while en route to a picnic with a bucket of fried chicken.
“A guy coming out of the filling station was watching for cars but he wasn’t watching for me,” Caughey said. “He hit me head-on and I flew onto the hood. He jumped out, griping and complaining that I was leaving marks on his dad’s car. I had no injuries but it kind of crippled my bike. The guy had no sympathy for me at all.”
In April 2025, Houston Mayor John Whitmire ordered the removal of concrete barriers on Austin Street that separated a two-way bike lane from vehicular traffic and reconfigured the thoroughfare to have a stripe separating bikes from cars, meaning, in cyclist lingo, the lane is unprotected. The bike lane is now one-way, and the cyclists ride alongside traffic in the same direction.
“That battle has been fought,” Caughey said. “We didn’t win but we did gain some attention. That was kind of the best we could hope for.”
Caughey, who lives in Cypress, said what cyclists want now is more connections between the Buffalo and Brays bayous and to have more pathways that link thoroughfares and venues.
“We’d like to be able to use bikes as transportation and not just recreation,” he said. “I live blocks from Cy-Fair High School. My daughter can ride her horse to school but my son can’t ride his bicycle. It’s surrounded by roads that are deemed unsafe for bicycles. School districts are cutting back on bus routes and now we’ve got moms and nannies in an idling car for 30 minutes twice a day.”
The cyclists also want some recognition that dependency on personal vehicles and fossil fuels should be reduced. “We are a global city; we are a modern city, and we need to act like it,” Caughey said. Sometimes people join the naked bike ride on a skateboard, unicycle, pedicab or on foot, which Caughey says is welcome, as long as they’re not distracting from the purpose of the event.
This is the 15th year Houston has participated in the World Naked Bike Ride. Caughey also participates in similar events in Austin, where the hills are more challenging, and in New Orleans, where he says the ride feels more like a fraternity party.
Saturday’s ride in Houston will go down Polk with a few refreshment stops along the way and end with a rally at the Columbia Tap Trail.
The group rides at night to limit public exposure and because it’s slightly cooler, Caughey says. He strongly encourages riders not to drink alcohol before or during the ride but many do it anyway. “Alcohol is not a good thing in the heat, and we don’t want to be impaired while we’re riding,” he said.
Houston ordinance says it’s unlawful for anyone to appear on a public street in a state of complete nudity or exposing genitalia, buttocks, or, in the case of a female, breasts, but organizers say that in order to hold up in court, a prosecutor would have to prove that the cyclist was being reckless in an effort to offend people. “If you’re seeing something in a way that is not confronting you, it shouldn’t be an issue,” Caughey said.
“As long as we remain in a group, the cops don’t bother us,” he added. “I think we’ve only had one ticket written when we were at a stop and someone was off from the group and there was a complaint. The cop wrote a ticket and it was dropped in court.”
Last year, officers who provided a police escort for the ride demanded that the cyclists cover their genitals. Caughey put on a kilt at last year’s event and said if that happens again, he will encourage his fellow cyclists to comply.
“It doesn’t help our cause if we’re causing problems with law enforcement,” he said.
