BWorks student Lilah Oelke gets ready for her Earn-A-Bike class’s graduation ride that took place earlier this month in Soulard. | Photo by Carrie Zukoski

Like many teenagers, St. Louis-area resident Lilah Oelke appears to lead a busy, full life juggling a lot of schedules and commitments — enough to make some of us adults tired just thinking about it all. When she shows up to Day 5 of her recent Saturday morning Earn-A-Bike class at St. Louis BWorks, for example, she’s a bit breathless from helping organize a charity event even earlier that same morning. And yet here she is, wide awake, prepared and ready to roll.

It’s not surprising to her BWorks teachers, who have had the opportunity to watch the 16-year-old grow in her confidence and skills in amazing ways over the past year, initially as a student in BWorks’ four-week-long Learn-To-Ride program. Like a growing number of American kids, Lilah at that point simply had not yet had the opportunity to master the skill of riding independently on two wheels.

“And I didn’t have a desire to learn after being injured while learning to ride when I was little,” she explains.

But when she learned she’d been accepted into a German exchange program through her school — and particularly that her experience overseas would include a four-hour bike tour through Munich — she decided it was time to commit to the BWorks lessons. She was determined to ride a bike in Germany in the summer of 2025.

“Being a pediatric cardiology patient who struggles with anxiety of being hurt, it was difficult for me initially,” Lilah says. “It wasn’t until closer to the end of my Learn-To-Ride sessions that things began to click.”

Lilah then devoted more time outside of BWorks to riding with assistance from her dad, and made such practice part of her routine to gain even more confidence. By the time this past summer rolled around, she was ready.

“All of the staff and my classmates on the trip knew how much time I had put in to prepare for the ride in Germany,” Lilah recalls of her trip. “It was honestly a bit surreal and emotional, reflecting on how much I had worked for this moment on the bike tour.”

Just like learning to ride, the Munich tour was not without its challenges. So much bumpy cobblestone! And a very different kind of bike than the BWorks mountain bike she’d learned on.

“The biggest stressor was the fact that they didn’t provide me a helmet!” Lilah says of her experience riding in Germany. “But in the moment, I continued to reflect on how much time and work I had put into learning how to ride, and how I really didn’t want to miss out on the beautiful scenery and experience. I’m so glad that I didn’t!”

Just a few months after returning from overseas, Lilah decided to jump into another free BWorks program: the six-week Earn-A-Bike experience, which wrapped up earlier this month for her and 11 more Saturday morning students.

“Learning all the components and mechanics of an actual bike through Earn-A-Bike has been very empowering and provided me a sense of safety,” Lilah says. “I will feel safer on rides now knowing how to care for my new bike. It’s also been helpful to have learned the rules of the road for bikers.”

She says she hopes to ride the bike she recently took home from BWorks around her neighborhood as well as Great Rivers Greenway trails.

“I’m still feeling a little unsure about urban riding, but hoping it will become a little more smooth over time,” she explains. “I also hope that the bike tour in Germany will be the first of many European bike tours in my future. Learning how to ride a bike feels like an important life skill, and I’m incredibly grateful that it’s one that I didn’t miss out on. I’m also very grateful for the BWorks team for helping me get to this point of my bike riding journey, and for their continued encouragement and support!”

BWorks graduate Lilah Oelke documents a moment with a truly enormous pretzel on her recent trip to Germany, which included a four-hour bike tour of Munich. She learned to ride a bicycle a few months prior through St. Louis BWorks’ free Learn-To-Ride program for kids ages 8 to 17.