Students will strip off and take to the streets in a bid to promote re-nude-able transport.

Brighton’s annual naked bike ride next Sunday will this year be joined by a ‘bike train’ student ride, meeting at the University of Sussex’s Falmer House at noon.

The main event, which is expected to attract more than 1,000 people, begins at the same time at The Level.

The aim of the ride, which began in 2004, is to protest against oil dependency and celebrate cycling.One of the organisers, Duncan Blinkhorn, said: "This is about having fun on bikes and celebrating the human body as an important form of renewable - or should I say 're-nude-able' - energy.

“It's also about alerting ourselves, as human beings, to our vulnerability, faced as we are with the consequences of continued dependence on fossil fuels and dangerous transport.

“We are conditioned to think that lugging ourselves around in a steel casket on wheels makes us safer, when sadly this is merely storing up trouble for the future." The ride will follow an eight-mile "naked sightseeing" route around the seafront and city centre, finishing at Black Rock naturist beach.

The protest has proved controversial in previous years, with former council leader Mary Mears branding it “sleazy”.

For more information, visit http://worldnakedbikeride.org/brighton