ST. LOUIS — One recent Sunday morning, the blacktop at Nottingham School in south St. Louis became a classroom.
Bobby Kelting squatted in front of his student, a gum-chewing 8-year-old astride a purple bike, and let the bike tilt to the side. Stomp the bug, he told her. She slammed her foot on the ground, killing an imaginary insect — and kept herself from toppling.
When you teach children to ride, Kelting said, you develop your own lingo.
Kelting opened BK Bike School in March 2021, a year into a bicycle boom that saw sales of two-wheelers more than double. When social distancing shut down team sports, biking prevailed. Mountain-biking leagues formed, trails teemed with riders, and parents — exhausted by driveway tutorials and cul-de-sac jog-alongs — started looking for expert instructors.
“There’s something about a teacher vs. a parent,” said Kelting, a job skills coach at Bayless High School. “The biggest thing…
