Minnesota bike museum is looking for a new home

MINNEAPOLIS — A unique piece of history is at risk of being locked away in storage.

Hundreds of bicycles from as far back as the 1800’s need a new home.

Juston Anderson, the co-founder of the Minnesota Cycling Museum, has a special gift for sharing the history of each bike off the top of his head.

“Once you tell the story of the bike, you just become kind of fascinated,” said Anderson. 

The museum is in need of a new space, as it could be asked to leave any day now from its temporary home at the Bloomington offices of bicycle distributor, QBP.

“Our alternative is we’re just going to be going into cold storage,” Anderson said. “That’s what I mean that there’s all kinds of pressure. To put all these into cold storage just kind of defeats the purpose of our museum.”

Like any good museum, there’s variety.

Anderson has decades-old photos, medals and trinkets in addition to the bicycles.

The museum has a mountain bike exhibit at the Trailhead in Minneapolis’s Theo Wirth Park.

Anderson says if they do find a new home, his collection is about 1,000 bikes strong, so he’ll never have to worry about filling the space.

“We’re just so thankful that we’ve got so many people that believe in us and see our vision and the potential of what this museum is going to be,” he said. “We’ve got all these great cycles, and we want to get them out in the public’s eye.”

Anderson says one of the challenges for the museum is that it’s a non-profit on a tight budget.

He says they’re looking for donations or grants to help them relocate somewhere with more exhibit and storage space.