The group meets at the Bell Tower, 7 p.m. sharp.

They start down Hillsborough Street, pedaling toward downtown through Dawson Street, New Bern Avenue and Hargett Street.

And then they stop, chaining their bikes to the nearest rack.

But this isn’t a race and it’s not a group fitness class.

These are students who, whether art enthusiasts or novices, are experiencing First Friday, a monthly event during which art galleries downtown open their doors, free of admission, to showcase new exhibits.

“It’s usually a crowd of 20 or so — or more,” Jeffrey Dwight Smith, a senior in English, said. “It’s been growing each month. If people don’t know where all the galleries are, they can just kind of go with that group. It’s a good way to introduce people to First Friday and all the events that are going on.”

And what’s going on involves an explosion of art, including photography, paintings, silk screens and sculptures — all free of cost.

“First Fridays are usually the only night we’re open,” Margery Hodges, director of promotions for Flanders Art Gallery, said. “It’s very big for us.”

Today, the gallery will premier two exhibitions: “Paintings for a Lifetime,” by Katherine Brown, whom the gallery represents on a regular basis, and an abstract black-and-white series by local artist Constance Pappalardo.

“She’s fabulous,” Hodges said of Brown. “This is a more extensive representation of her work.”

Brown’s series, which Hodges said varies from her traditional portrait work, features street scenes and figurative art.

“Some of them are more abstract,” she said, “which is what makes them contemporary.”

Both Brown and Pappalardo will be at the gallery, which will serve wine and cheese from 6 to 9 p.m. today.

But it’s not just local talent that will be presented downtown tonight. A few blocks from the Flanders Art Gallery sits the Free Range Studio – “the best-kept secret,” according to its owner and artist Carrie Knowles.

“It’s a beautiful gallery,” she said. “I’m the best parking in town.”

Knowles is presenting her own art in addition to various media from Australian artists, with whom she worked for a collection entitled “What Women Want.”

“In the summer of 2006 I was in Australia,” she said, “and we began working together and we came up with the idea of each of us responding to the Arthurian legend about the Green Knight.”

The legend, Knowles said, is based upon a knight who was sent into the forest with orders to marry a hag. When he does find her, she says she is instead a beautiful princess. He must choose whether he wants her to be a princess by day and a hag by night — so everyone else will know he has married a princess — or a hag by day and a princess by night. He chooses correctly, and she becomes a princess both day and night.

Each artist, Jennifer Hamilton, Nancy Brown, Sharon Lee and Knowles, responded to the question in her own way, through her own medium. Knowles used a series of silk screens.

In addition to this collection, Knowles is displaying her own work entitled “Faded Memories,” in which she recreated the qualities of her mother’s old Polaroid camera, which she had used as a child, in photographs she took in Tuscany.

“The film wasn’t that good and the camera wasn’t that good,” Knowles said. “I loved them because of the way pieces were missing and the picture was faded in some places. I loved them because they were more memories than photographs.”

Though N.C. State students aren’t foreign to the gallery, she said she would love to get more students to view these exhibitions.

And a few more blocks down the road on Hargett Street is the Morning Times Gallery, which is premiering a collection by David Ikenberger, hung Wednesday night in preparation for the month ahead.

Smith, who works at the gallery as a barista, said the art, composed of a collection of varying media, is “unique and interesting.” Some of these pieces are paintings on wooden sculptures.

“One is painted on an old wooden door,” he said. “That one’s very interesting. Another is a tree robot.”

Though he said the gallery is usually crowded because of the artists it showcases, Smith said it is especially busy on First Fridays.

“It usually gets pretty swamped in here,” Smith said. “There are people coming and going all night long. It’s a pretty good crowd, always a good time.”

But for one gallery, the entertainment doesn’t end when the doors close.

When the lights go off at FM Goods and Sounds, a gallery showcasing a collection called “The Sunduckers” to the tune of two DJ’s, the party continues until 2 a.m. at Mosquito, a club downtown.

“Between 200 to 300 people come through for the night,” Bryan Fujimoto, the gallery’s owner, said. “Between 30 to 50 N.C. State students who either know about or are just walking by [show up].”

The collection will be new to both visitors and Fujimoto.

“I haven’t seen it yet, so we’ll see,” he said. “It’s going to be a surprise.”