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Today, Thursday, January 29 is a little bit like the Cyclists’ New Year in Louisville, as Bicycling for Louisville (B4L) and some of the city’s top cycling leaders are gathering to ring in 2015 as the #YearOfTheBike at the St. John Nulu Theater on Nulu‘s East Market Street beginning at 6:00p.m. We already told you to put it on your calendars and now we’re giving you one last reminder, so you have no excuse to miss the festivities this evening—and you might just ride away on your own brand new Raleigh Cadent bike like the one over to the left.

According to Chris Glasser, president of B4L:

The Kick-Off is a night where we bring bike advocacy into a single room and turn it into a little bit of a party. So much of bike advocacy happens at public meetings or online comment forms. It’s just one chance a year to bring everyone out and feel the actual energy of people clamoring for change.

Lots of bike groups will be at the Kick-Off—groups like KyMBA and the Louisville Bicycle Club—and Parkside Bikes will be raffling off a bike. The Parklands and MegaCaverns, both of which are putting in awesome bike infrastructure in the city, will be there. But we’re also inviting neighborhood groups as well — Center for Neighborhoods, City Collaborative, Shelby Park Neighborhood Association. B4L is a bike organization, and we’re primarily concerned with bikeability — ie, daily bike riding that is safe and convenient. Achieving that means getting neighborhoods involved. We view them as partners in making streets safer for bikers, pedestrians, kids, residents, everybody.

A big part of the event is to spread the word about the work of B4L and maybe pick up a few members along the way. “We’d like to increase our membership,” Glasser said. “Last year, we had 50 new members at the Kick-Off. We’d like to get 100 members—either new or renewing—this year.”

If you join up with B4L—yearly memberships begin at just $30—you’ll be helping to bring about positive change for cyclists in Louisville. Glasser said some of the projects B4L is championing include a cycletrack on Lexington Road, a two-way facility on Jefferson Street, road diets on the Olmsted Parkways, and the Neighborways network that B4L designed for the city and that is beginning to be implemented.

We highly recommend you bike on down to the #YearOfTheBike Kick-Off at 6:00p.m. tonight, Thursday, January 29 for a night of festivities, bicycle education, community, and a even prizes. For more information about the Kick-Off event, head on over to its Facebook page.

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