Sixty-five professional models, completely naked, pedaling rented bicycles around a greyhound racing track. That was the scene at Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium in London on 17 September 1978, when Queen filmed the video for their single Bicycle Race. The location had nothing to do with tennis — Wimbledon hosted dog races, and the band turned it into a surreal cycling event. Director Denis de Vallance, who had worked with Pointer Sisters, The Clash, and Kool & The Gang, orchestrated the shoot. What began as a cheeky visual idea quickly became a logistical headache.
The saddle ultimatum
The rental company had no problem leasing sixty-five bicycles to Queen — until they learned the concept. Once the words 'nude models' reached the owners, they demanded the band purchase every single saddle outright. Hygiene concerns trumped rock star charisma. The shoot went ahead anyway, with the professional models racing around the track while Freddie Mercury and the rest of Queen performed. The video became one of the most talked-about clips of the era, a perfect match for the song's playful absurdity.
Bicycle Race arrived at a strange moment in Queen's career. The band had spent years building a reputation for elaborate studio work and theatrical stage shows, yet this single leaned into pure spectacle. The song itself was part of a double A-side release with Fat Bottomed Girls, and the imagery doubled down on provocation. British audiences were used to Queen's flamboyance, but sixty-five naked cyclists on a dog track pushed the boundaries of what a promotional video could be.
Commercial stakes behind the chaos
The absurdity of the shoot masked real commercial stakes. Queen were competing in a crowded rock landscape, and their visual identity had become as important as the music. Denis de Vallance brought a professional polish that made the chaos feel deliberate. His credits with Kool & The Gang and The Clash showed he could handle wildly different energies. For Queen, the Bicycle Race video became a calling card — proof that their sense of humor and their ambition could occupy the same frame.
Four decades later, the song's cultural footprint had grown in unexpected directions. When the Official Charts Company marked its sixtieth anniversary, British voters placed Someone Like You by Adele among their three most beloved songs of the entire period. That poll put Adele behind only Billie Jean by Michael Jackson and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. The same band that filmed naked cyclists in 1978 had produced the song Britons ranked above almost everything else in chart history.
Other chaotic music moments
The Bicycle Race shoot has a strange resonance with other chaotic music moments. In 1976, Sex Pistols performed for inmates at Chelmsford prison in Essex; the recording of that concert only emerged in 1990, heavily overdubbed by sound engineer Dave Goodman. In 1964, The Beatles took a record fee of 150,000 dollars for a single Municipal Stadium show in Kansas City. Music history is littered with moments where spectacle and logistics collided, but few involved a rental company demanding saddle purchases.
Queen's appetite for controlled chaos echoed through the decades. The band's Bohemian Rhapsody became a benchmark for British pop ambition, and the Bicycle Race video remains a document of how far they would go for an image. The contrast between the polished studio sound of the single and the raw, ridiculous energy of the shoot captured something essential about Queen. They could be both meticulous and utterly unhinged, often in the same afternoon.
They could be both meticulous and utterly unhinged, often in the same afternoon.
The legacy of that September day in 1978 lives in the strangest details. The rental company's saddle demand, the greyhound track mistaken for tennis courts, the sixty-five professional models — each element contributes to a story that sounds apocryphal but is entirely documented. Queen understood that rock mythology thrives on such specifics. A video of naked cyclists became more memorable than a conventional performance clip ever could have been.
Seventeen September now carries multiple musical echoes: the Bicycle Race shoot in 1978, the death of Eagles songwriter JD Souther in 2024, and the arrest of Sean Combs that same day. But for Queen fans, the date belongs to a greyhound stadium and sixty-five rented bicycles. The rental company kept their saddles, Queen kept the footage, and the image of naked cyclists racing around a London dog track became permanent.