It's October! That means the weather is getting (slightly) cooler, the temporary Halloween storefronts are opening, everyone's ditching their flip-flops for actual shoes, and almost everything is pumpkin-flavored. Fall!

It also means we only have 10 DAYS TO GO before we hit our Kickstarter deadline to reach our funding goal!

It's hard to believe we started this thing 19 days ago, but a lot has changed since then. We have 159 backers who have pledged a whopping $11,490 to help us fight bike theft with our ever-growing bike registry.

We're adding more and more bikes to the Index every day, at the lakefront trail and events like Andersonville Made Fest and this past Sunday's Chicago Cross Cup.

On Sunday, Kickstarter picked us to be the project of the day, which is a pretty big deal. Obviously, we're excited about our project, but it's great to know other people think it's as cool as we do. Thanks, Kickstarter!

And this week we've already signed up four new Chicago bike shops - Comrade Cycles, Upgrade Cycle Works, Blue City Cycles and Irv's Bike Shop!

We've also received some excellent press lately – local and national! - thanks to the Outside the Loop radio show, Streetsblog Chicago, Silicon Beach Clearly, and Fast Company's Co.exist blog.

It's obvious from the $11,490 we've already raised that the Bike Index is something people need and want on a local and national level, and we want to keep making it better – with your help! Help us reach our funding goal and deadline by donating, sharing the Kickstarter page, tweeting and talking us up as much as you can in the next ten days! We can't do it without you.

Happy October! Let's get this thing FUNDED!