Get your lawn chaircameraphone out, university students in Guangzhou are joining this year’s World Naked Bike Ride.

Earlier this month, a bike shop employee at University City made a call online to hold an inter-campus naked bike ride on June 25 to raise awareness about carbon emissions. Since then, at least 50 men and women have signed up and more than a thousand others have said that while it sounds kind of yawn, they might turn up anyway.

The organizer says he’ll be riding naked

Authorities are actually playing it pretty cool; police have only recommended that participants not bare it all; lawyers, in turn, point out that China doesn’t have any laws or regulations banning public nudity. The city has said it won’t shut the event down, but did cite administrative regulations regarding public disturbances, telling the organizer to keep the number of participants below two hundred and to wait until the sun goes down.

Since first making the call, the 18-year-old organizer and bike repair shop employee, “Donkey” (驴子), has pushed the start time of the event from 8 pm to 7 pm to leave more time for body painting and other activities. The bike route covers 8km and is expected to last for 30 minutes.

Clearer skies for the polluted river delta?

With factoryland for a backyard, Guangzhou, with its many forested areas, roadside shrubs and rooftop gardens, doesn’t have it half bad. The city has also had a really active cycling and outdoors scene for several years. Cynics see tomorrow’s naked bike ride more as University City bike shops hoping to promote their business than an attempt to raise support for healthier transportation options, two things no business owner should, naturally, ever do. Anyway, let’s see where this goes and if we can find some photos from the event over the weekend.

University City’s first ever naked bike ride: 7-9 pm, June 25, 2011

6:30 – Body painting
7:30 – Photo ops
8:00 – Bike ride begins
9:00 – End

Starting point: Kaifei Bike Shop (map), #E106, Beiting Square, Guangzhou University City (广州大学城北亭广场恺飞车行)

06/24 Update: Here’s a Southern Television Guangdong (TVS) report on tomorrow’s ride.