Participants in the 8th annual Bricks and Spokes bike ride Saturday will have the opportunity to not just ride across the Old Mississippi River Bridge into Louisiana, but also through the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Vicksburg Main Street partnered with Bike Your Park Day for this year’s event and three of the four routes for the ride will take participants through the park.

“We moved Bricks and Spokes up a weekend early and it just happened to fall on Bike Your Park Day,” Kim Hopkins, the executive director of Vicksburg Main Street, said. “With it falling on that we asked if we could join Bike Your Park Day. We are excited to be able to combine the two rides.”

Riders will have the option of riding a 10, 30, 50 or 62-mile course this year with all but the 10 miles course riding at least a portion of VNMP. The 30-mile course will take riders through only a portion of the park, while participants in the 50 and 62-mile rides will bike through the entire park.

“We are at about 130 riders and I hope we will get up to at least 200 if not more,” Hopkins said. “That will be about what we are used to. We have always had right around 200 so I would love to have more than 200. The weather is supposed to be beautiful and I can tell a lot of cyclists just in the last two days have signed up.”

The ride is open to participants of all ages and even to those who don’t own their own bicycle as Battlefield Bicycle will be on hand to rent bicycles to those who don’t have their own.

“We are open to all cyclists,” Hopkins said. “It is not a race. It is a ride. We accept all bikes.”

The ride will start at the Vicksburg Senior Center on South Street in downtown Vicksburg at 8 a.m. Saturday.

For more information or to register, visit bricksandspokes.raceonline.com