The famous naked bike ride pedals on unofficially in Portland this year

Even though the official ride was put on hold this year, a spin-off of the World Naked Bike Ride pedaled through Portland Saturday afternoon.

The ride organizers emphasize that its first and foremost a protest against fossil fuel dependency. Second, it's a communal place to celebrate yourself, exactly how you are.

The "official" World Naked Bike Ride took a hiatus this year. But protesting bikers still wanted to come together.

As one of the speakers before today's ride explained, it's an effort to bring their qualms with Zenith Energy into the limelight. They also want to inspire others to commute via bike and celebrate body positivity.

Saturday afternoon, hundreds of bodies gathered at Colonel Summers Park in Southeast Portland around 4 p.m. This was a change from the ride's usual nighttime slot.

After people painted on each other, danced to music blasting from multiple speakers, and delivered emotional speeches into microphones, a sea of naked and nearly-naked people on bikes headed out. Their plan is to lie down at the Zenith Energy building in Northwest Portland for ten minutes before ending the ride at the waterfront.

As the ride organizer going by the name Spartacus said, "Give yourself permission to know it's your body and feel a sense of belonging to your life and your body. Because your body chooses clean air, clean water, clean rivers."