Bicycle Hangar Missoula, Mt

The old way to teach your child to ride a bike by pushing them down the sidewalk is difficult and dangerous.

There are a couple of problems with this method.
Your child becomes dependant on you holding them up.
When you let go they usually look back to see if you are holding them up and fall down.

The safety issue is if they turn sharp while you are running with them they can fall in front of you. When you fall on top of them it hurts both of you. It is really hard to run while you are leaning down. Do not run behind the bike pushing your child.

This is a picture from above Lincoln Hills in Missoula looking at East Missoula.

The Easy Safe Way to Teach your Child to Ride a Bike

Start by finding a very gently sloping unused road or driveway. Take the pedals and training wheels off the bike. Remember the left hand pedal will be threaded backwards.

Safety Gear Required

Have your child wear long pants, shoes not sandals or flip flops, a Helmet, and gloves are all recommended.  If they have some soccer knee pads that are not too bulky, all the better.  Put the seat height so your child can easily touch the ground on both sides of the bike. Now let your child go up and down the gentle slope by using their bike as a hobby horse. They will quickly get the feeling of gliding with their bike.

Coasting down the Slope

Get them to go down the slope holding their feet a little ways off the ground. Do the same with your bike so they can see what to do.   You can leave your pedals on if you put your seat down a little. When they get to where they can hold their feet up and turn the bike they have mastered a two wheeler. Play at this for a while and get them turning both left and right. Put some little rocks or mark with chalk on the road and use it as a slalom coarse. Add pedals and have them start by going downhill and pushing with their feet. Once they are moving have them start pedalling and they have it mastered.

Safely Teach your child to ride without training wheels.

Your back will not be sore, you will not have concrete burns on your hands and knees from falling over your child’s bike. This is easy and it works great.

The Bicycle Hangar has been serving the riders of Missoula and the surrounding area since 1980.  For the latest in Mountain bikes, Road bikes and Comfort bikes.

Summary

Don’t run your child down the street teaching them to ride a bike.  Learn the easy safe way to teach someone to ride a bike.  This is the best way to teach an adult to ride a bike also.

This article written by Rick Kern of Missoula Bicycle Hangar 1801 Brooks, Missoula, Mt 59801
406-728-9537

The Bicycle Hangar opened in March of 1980.  We started with a dozen bikes and $500 in parts at 1803 Brooks.  We filled the small 200 square feet space at 1801 Brooks with a workbench and bikes from Mcray and Conner, a small distributor from Spokane.   The First bikes we carried were RoadAce built by Maruishi in Japan.  Shortly after we opened Mt. St Helens blew and we were shut down for a couple of weeks while the whole area cleaned up.

A couple of years later we moved into the larger space next door at 1805 Brooks.  We still sold only road bikes and a few kids bikes.  It wasn’t until about 1986,  87 that mountain bikes were coming onto the market.  We carried mountain bikes from Shogun, Takara, Sekai, Diamond Back, Mt Sport and a few others as Mountain bikes were often in short supply.  GT moved into Mountain bikes about this time.  GT soon became our main line of mountain bikes.   In the late 80’s we stocked and sold a lot of BMX and Freeestyle bikes from GT, Haro, Hutch, and Redline also.

1801 Brooks
In 1990 we bought the old 93 Chrysler building right next door at 1801 Brooks.   It is so appropriate that a bicycle shop would take over a car dealership.  We moved in the spring of 1990.  Bicycles in Missoula and the US were booming.   Mountain Bike Racing was taking off also.   About 1993 we picked up Gary Fisher bikes.  We carried GT and Fisher bikes almost exclusively through the rest of the 90’s.   The CEO of GT Rich Long died in a motorcycle accident in 1996.  This was the beginning of the end of GT which had been one of the biggest forces in both Mountain Biking and BMX for the previous ten to fifteen years.

We picked up Lemond Road bikes and Diamond Back Mountain bikes in the late 90’s.  In 2004 we decided to remodel the 1801 Brooks building and put in Freemo’s Pizza buffet in the front of the building.

I have been really lucky through the years in finding some great employees.   I have also been lucky enough through the years to have served some great customers.  Thanks Missoula…

Rick Kern  Bicycle Hangar

Missoula and University of Montana
2009 is a very proud year for me.  My third Missoula educated child will graduate from the University of Montana.  All of my children Dorey, Sager, and Peter attended grade school through college in Missoula.

The Kern Family and Missoula History

My Great Grandfather Frank Kern came to Missoula in the 1870s.  He rode a steamboat up the Missouri River to Fort Benton.  He walked from Fort Benton to Missoula. Frank  became a Blacksmith and had a blacksmith shop next to the Missoula Mercantile on Front Street.  This location was sold to the Elks and the Elks lodge was built there shortly after 1900.   He died in the early 1900s and his son Clare P. Kern while still in high school went to work for the City of Missoula Fire Department to help support the family.   Clare later became fire chief and served for over 50 years as a city of Missoula Fire Department employee.  He holds the record for longest tenure as a City of Missoula employee.

Missoula Cycling and the Kern Family

Frank Kern’s brother Henry Rupert Kern (Great Great Uncle of Rick Kern) also came to Missoula in the 1880’s.  He opened a Bicycle and Typewriter repair shop at 125 east Main named “Yankee Repair”.   A footnote on the famous Black Army detachment that rode from Fort Missoula to St. Louis.  When they returned to Missoula by train from St. Louis the first place they stopped was “Yankee Repair” the bicycle shop owned by H. R. Kern.

I have been motivated to get out and ride some. I would rather ride the ice than sweat away on the trainer. Here are some pictures from the third week of February 2009.

Kim Williams Trail Feb 2009.

I made it about half a mile up the Deer Creek Sneak but I couldn’t stay on top of the snow, too much winter excess weight? I went back and went up the Deer Creek Road.

Woods Gulch Trail February 2009

Lincoln Grade School Feb 2009. The trail below here was real icy.

Pattee Canyon Feb 18, 2009, This gentleman was heading up to ski as I was coming down. The Deer Creek side was solid ice with a good layer of gravel over it.

I flatted my studded tire and thought we were out of the ice season.  Six crashes in three rides tells me I should have built up another studded tire.  Some people learn as they get older others of us just get older.  Rick