When: February 13-15, 2015

Hosted by: Bike Works in Seattle, WA

Admission: $25/youth; $50/adult

Registration: Click HERE to purchase tickets!

*Earlybird rates apply through January 15, 2015

Call for Participation: Click HERE for more info!

*Accepting applications through November 5, 2014

From the Cascade Bicycle Club's Cascade Courier: The Youth Bike Summit creates a space like no other.

It’s a space where everyone present has something to teach, to learn, and to share. At the Youth Bike Summit, everyone is welcome and every voice is heard. It’s where ideas are born, where vision is cultivated, and where the process of working together can make dreams for a healthier future come true. What’s more, the Youth Bike Summit is coming to Seattle for the first time ever – Join us!

The Youth Bike Summit is a three-day national conference geared toward youth, bikes, education, advocacy, and leadership. People from different disciplines, backgrounds, and ages gather together to learn, share, network, and explore how bicycling can be a catalyst for positive social change. The 2015 program will feature keynote speakers, innovative hands-on workshops, engaging panel presentations (many led by youth), a collective visioning session, and many other opportunities for youth and adults to share ideas about what biking can mean for children, families, and communities.

What makes the 2015 conference especially meaningful is that this will be the first year the Youth Bike Summit travels nationally. It was started in 2011 with the help of two teenage interns at a community-based bike shop in Brooklyn, NY called Recycle-A-Bicycle – a sister-organization of Bike Works. The teens had just traveled to Washington, DC for the first time ever to attend the League of American Bicyclists’ National Bike Summit. While they were awe-struck by all they had learned – from the Safe Routes to School bill, to lobbying elected officials on Capitol Hill, to exploring the nation’s capital by bike, and even to meeting mountain bike pioneer Gary Fisher – they couldn’t help but wonder where all the young people were. For if bicycle policy affected all cyclists, then certainly all cyclists should be represented at the decision-making table. As the team debriefed their experiences, a blueprint for the Youth Bike Summit began to emerge. 

While the teens initially hoped for a moderate showing of youth, educators, and bicycle advocates from the New York area, it quickly became clear that the the Youth Bike Summit would attract a much broader audience – from near and (very) far! For each and every year that followed, the Youth Bike Summit, its impact, and its momentum, continued to grow. In 2014, the conference welcomed more than 500 youth and adult participants from 26 states and 4 countries. While New York City and Youth Bike partners Recycle-A-Bicycle and Parsons The New School for Design have been proud hosts and organizers for the past four years, it was time to share the Youth Bike Summit with young people across the US.

We are thrilled to bring the Youth Bike Summit to Seattle! With generous sponsorship from Cascade Bicycle Club and the Seattle Department of Transportation, Bike Works will host the 2015 event. So join us! Bring your ideas about what a better biking future looks like and be a part of the movement!

Contact: 

Pasqualina Azzarello, Director of Youth Bike pasqualina@youthbikesummit.org

Deb Salls, Executive Director of Bike Works deb@bikeworks.org