Gear up for the Opening of Woods Room Bike Park in Larimer

PHOTO BY MURPHY MOSCHETTA

Michael and Mark Potoczny were raised on BMX bikes.

Their dad, a professional motocross racer, helped them build ramps and jumps all over the family’s 50-acre property in Independence. The brothers spent as much time in the air as on the ground.

Now, along with a team of fellow bike enthusiasts, they’re gearing up for another high-flying adventure.

This one will take place indoors.

PHOTO BY MURPHY MOSCHETTA

Woods Room Bike Park is expected to open this summer in a 50,000-square-foot warehouse on Hamilton Avenue in Larimer. The year-round facility will offer bike rentals, private and group lessons, summer camps and event programming. Its onsite (and online) bike shop currently operates Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Neighboring businesses include KLVN Coffee Lab, Goodlander Cocktail Brewery, Jackworth Ginger Beer and East End Brewing Co., which ended its annual Pedal Pale Ale Keg Ride at the Woods Room on April 11.

PHOTO BY MURPHY MOSCHETTA

The space is already a community hub for riders-turned-volunteers who are still reeling from the loss of The Wheel Mill, an 80,000-square-foot indoor bike park in Homewood that operated from 2012 to 2024. Owner Harry Geyer’s once-booming business was deflated by the pandemic and back-to-back mild winters.

But interest in indoor riding is gaining momentum.

The Woods Room Indiegogo campaign raised more than $100,000 and volunteers logged about 2,000 hours to get the project rolling.

PHOTO BY MURPHY MOSCHETTA

The park includes numerous pieces from The Wheel Mill, which was located just three blocks away. The layout includes a progressive range of ramps, jump lines, pump tracks, quarter pipes, trails and obstacles to help riders of every age and ability hone their skills.

Michael Potoczny, a professional ramp builder who served as The Wheel Mill’s educational director, designed a learn-to-ride curriculum that’s helped hundreds of folks get moving, whether they’re on the road, the race track or in the wild.

His other credentials — a list longer than the Tour de France — include the 2022 Educator of the Year Award from BikePGH, a non-profit organization that works to make the city safe, accessible and cycle-friendly.

PHOTO BY MURPHY MOSCHETTA

May is National Bike Month and Potoczny is excited to see new and familiar faces behind the handlebars.

“I love building community and showing people an activity they can do for the rest of their lives,” says the 37-year-old, who started riding competitively when he was 6.

For all of the doom-scrolling it does, the Digital Generation is still rolling thanks to an increase in bike-friendly lanes, trails, events and advocacy throughout the city. In 2019, 350 youth-cyclists signed up for The Wheel Mill’s summer camp.

In addition to kids 16 and under, many of Potoczny’s students are adults between the ages of 40 and 60. Some of these Gen Xers haven’t been on a bike since E.T. phoned home.

I fall into that demographic.

Last summer, at age 46, I impulsively purchased a rad bike from Scholl’s Bicycle Center in West View, where my parents bought me my first two-wheeler in 1983.

PHOTO COURTESY OF KRISTY GRAVER

Scholl’s closed in September after 70 years, but, like The Wheel Mill, parts of it and other shuttered businesses such as West Liberty Bike Shop and B-Cubed Bike & Skate Park, will get another spin at the Woods Room.

Let’s ride!