On Sunday, January 8th, 2012 tens of thousands of people took off their pants on subways in 59 cities in 27 countries around the world. In New York, our 11th Annual No Pants Subway Ride had nearly 4,000 participants, spread out over six meeting points and ten subway lines. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.

If you’re unfamiliar with this event, you might want to first read our history of The No Pants Subway Ride. Since this is the 11th year we’ve done this, there’s not too much to report other than it was another awesome time. Below are a small selection of photos that jumped out to me as being fun and new, compared to previous editions. Enjoy!

This guy won the award for “oldest participant” at last year’s ride when he was 76. You would have thought he would have won again at 77, but nope, a 78-year-old beat him out. You can see the 78-year-old in the video in the red hat and very tight underwear.

On the other end of the age spectrum, there were many babies this year.

The NYPD guys at the downtown meeting point were especially friendly this year. I had a fun time talking to them before we got started. Although The No Pants Subway Ride is still completely unauthorized, I think it’s great that the NYPD comes out to escort us as if we were an official parade.

I wound up in the same subway car as the guy above. Even though I started downtown and he started in Astoria, we ended up together after I transferred. One of the things I love about the scope of the No Pants Subway Ride these days is that we really take over the whole system. At 59th and Lex, three trains of pantless people arrived at the same time. Two groups were switching lines and one was just passing through. Anyway, the guy in the photo above wins the badass award.

Pretty awesome the US Military was represented.

Probably the sharpest father and son team in all of NYC.

Once again the No Pants Subway Ride happened around the world, with many cities making their debut this year. You can find links to photos and articles in the comments on this page: Regional Agent Reports. The above photo comes from Istanbul. This was the first Turkish city to participate. The police got involved, detaining participants and deleting photos from their cameras (though obviously they didn’t delete them all!) The leader of the event wrote a great write up about their day that’s worth a read. Other cities that reported trouble from police or security: Chicago, Madrid, and Milan. I don’t believe anyone was arrested or fined, just detained or asked to stop.

I gotta give props to the Miami ride, as it only had ONE participant. Pretty awesome and brave to still go through with it. She’s pictured above.

Bangalore became the first city in India to participate. The all-male participant group reported no trouble from authorities, but many shocked passengers.

We announce the date of the No Pants Subway Ride every year in early December. If you’re interested in participating in 2013 in New York or anywhere else in the world, sign up for our mailing list, follow us on twitter, and like us on Facebook so you’ll be the first to hear about it.

Get the official 2012 No Pants Subway Ride t-shirt:

Mission Accomplished.

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OTHER RESOURCES:

– To see links to full flickr sets of photos from all of our official photographers and to read comments from participants, check out this page: NYC Agent Reports

– Check out the comments in this post for reports and links to photos from the regional events: Regional Agent Reports

– Also check out our complete history of The No Pants Subway Ride.

– See our new video telling the story of the first No Pants Subway Ride: