Northside teacher Emily Siegmeier begins program to teach kids to ride a bike

When kids learn to ride a bicycle, it’s often something they pick up at home or, at least, away from school.

At one elementary school in La Crosse, however, a physical education teacher has launched a program to help students get on bikes as soon as possible, after they start attending classes.

Teacher Emily Siegmeier started the Learn to Ride project at Northside Elementary/ Coulee Montessori schools in La Crosse.

Siegmeier did it in response to numbers showing that a large number of young students at Northside were not able to use bikes yet.

“I wrote a grant to LPEF (the La Crosse Public Education Foundation)” for the Learn to Ride effort, she said. “It was to get 20 Strider bikes, which are balance bikes, to teach our kinder and first graders the balance and the core strength involved with riding a bike, so they can transfer that skill to a pedal bike when they’re a little bit bigger.”

The grant added up to $5,160 and Smith’s Bike Shop provided the bicycles.

Siegmeier said the goal is to help every student at Northside be skilled enough to ride a bike by third grade.

Some of the students finished a few days of training in the Northside gym last week, learning to ride the bikes over and around obstacles placed on the gym floor.