About

The Fall Bike Celebration started out with the simple idea that we wanted a way to properly thank the volunteers, organizers and sponsors of Kalamazoo Area Bike Beek 2019. It could have been done with a hearty handshake and a slice of pizza, and everyone would have been happy. But then we realized that for Bike Week to be sustainable, we had to find a way to fund it on into the future. Doh! Aha! Hmmm… The ideas kept coming and led to the Fall Bike Celebration Weekend. The FBC keeps Bike Week going, serves as a bookend to the traditional fair weather cycling season and supports many other great bicycling and community programs as well.

Bike Friendly Kalamazoo is a network of volunteers drawn from throughout greater Kalamazoo, together with a number of communities in our metropolitan planning area, backed up by our institutional status as an IRS 501(c)3 Michigan nonprofit corporation.  Our mission is to help make our greater community even more bicycle friendly. By and large our volunteers are delegates from thoughout our metropolitan planning organization, representing stakeholders from local transportation planning and engineering agencies, elected officials, law enforcement, businesses, charitable and philanthropic organizations, education, parks and recreation, healthcare, and employers, in addition to the area’s leading bike clubs, shops, teams and less formal riding groups.

Donations of Any Size Are Appreciated

Can’t volunteer but would like to help make our greater community even more bicycle friendly? Become a Friend of Bike Friendly Kalamazoo today — DONATE directly by using the button below. We appreciate contributions of any size.

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This website is dedicated to our Fall Bike Celebration Weekend.  We are honored and excited to work with our volunteers from local cycling clubs, and the Village of Vicksburg, home-base for much of our weekend celebration, in addition to representatives from Kalamazoo County Parks, Western Michigan University, and Climax.  This Celebration is our way to embrace the beauty of the fall and the many benefits that bicycling has to offer that strengthens community.   Our Celebration welcomes everyone who can participate and explore what makes Southwest Michigan so great — and to support many worthy charitable causes, as well.  Click HERE for an 8.5×11″ JPEG of our vintage inaugural 2019 poster, designed by Ludwig Betz of Artwear Apparel Graphics, with support from Consort Display Group and Thomas Mills. This year’s flyer can be downloaded off our home page.

Your support and participation in the Fall Bike Celebration Weekend will help support Bike Friendly Kalamazoo’s mission, and also to provide funds to feed kids that might otherwise go hungry through Generous Hands (a partner with Loaves and Fishes), deliver services to veterans, seniors and the disabled through South County Community Services.  This event is one of the most public ways that Bike Friendly Kalamazoo can raise funds to boost its bike safety, education and awareness building programs, not to mention the very concrete goal of increasing interest and participation in riding bikes…for bicyclists and cyclists of virtually all ages and abilities!

Our Mission

Bike Friendly Kalamazoo is helping to make our greater community even more bicycle friendly, to bring about all the benefits that bicycling entails.  In doing so we will be facilitating many other non-motorized uses, as well.  We’re part of a larger place-building effort aimed at making our area even more attractive as a great community in which to live, learn, work and play. Please learn more about Bike Friendly Kalamazoo by visiting www.bikefriendlykalamazoo.org!