Protesters banned from stripping off for a naked bike ride have defiantly told police: "Get your handcuffs out - we're baring all."

Sussex Police have become embroiled in a row with organisers of the Brighton leg of the World Naked Bike Ride after telling the cyclists they would be arrested for causing "harassment, alarm or distress".

But race organiser Nick Sayers, who has resigned in frustration, has vowed that the show will go on next month.

Mr Sayers told Sussex Police in March about next month's bike ride, which is expected to attract around last year's total of 160 riders.

But Brighton's police chief Paul Pearce told Mr Sayers in an email: "On a Saturday in the early summer Brighton and Hove will be very busy and there will be a lot of families out on the streets of the city centre with children.

"It is therefore very likely that the police will receive numerous complaints to the effect that people feel harassed, alarmed, or distressed by the sight of naked adults in public. If that is the case we will not hesitate to take action and it is possible that participants will be arrested and prosecuted."

Mr Pearce said that if the ride went ahead and extra police cover had to be brought in the organisers would foot the bill.

Jesse Schust, of World Naked Bike Ride, said: "The slogan of the ride encourages people to come as bare as you dare'. The lack of clothes on the ride has an essential and serious point to it.

"As an official event for national Bike Week, it is deliberately non-sexual and family-friendly.

"The ride will go ahead but without central leadership if we can't reach agreement with the police. People can turn up if they want to."

The police voiced similar concerns during the ride's debut last year.

Riders took note and covered their private parts using a variety of means including "censored" sticky tape and well placed socks.

For this year's event though, the organisers wanted Sussex Police to follow forces in Manchester, London and York where similar rides have taken place completely unopposed.

Despite the row the ride looks set to start on Saturday, June 9 at 10am at The Level and will take the same route as the 2006 event.

Last year participants assembled at The Level to begin the seven-mile ride around Brighton and Hove via the Palace Pier, the Royal Pavilion, Churchill Square, Hove Town Hall and the West Pier before finishing two hours later at Black Rock.

The international event, held in about 40 cities, is organised to highlight oil dependency and the vulnerability of cyclists on the roads, while also celebrating the human body.

Chief Superintendent Pearce said: "We are not being cautious about the ride.

"If what they do is cause harrasment, upset people or cause offence then they will be arrested. That's not my personal opinion, that's the law.

"If they do nothing wrong nobody will get arrested."

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