Scholl brothers retiring from family's West View bike shop, making way for new borough complex

The day after graduating from North Allegheny High School in 1978, Dave Scholl went to work fixing bicycles in his parents’ shop in West View.

He and his older brother, Ken, a 1973 grad, have been together there ever since.

“That’s all we’ve done all of our life — fix and sell bikes,” Dave Scholl said. “We knew we would take it over at some point.”

After running Scholl’s Bicycle Center for about 25 years, the brothers are ready to retire, expecting to shut down in August.

“It’s time to go play with the grandchildren,” said Dave, 65. “I can’t wait. It will be nice.”

With grandkids of his own, Ken, 70, feels the same as his brother. And, “I’ll get to sleep in now,” he said.

As the Scholl brothers prepare for retirement, West View has big plans for the area including their shop, the former Grotto Bar & Grille and the West View Firemen’s Banquet Hall.

A $3 million project will see the banquet hall turned into the borough’s new administrative office and police station, with a new, four-bay fire station built where Scholl’s Bicycle Center has been since 1976.

The borough was close to finalizing a deal with the Scholls to buy their property, said Bruce Fromlak, West View’s police chief and borough manager. The borough also is negotiating to buy the Grotto property, but it is not essential for the development of the new municipal complex, he said.

The existing fire hall, on Perry Highway across from West View Elementary School, will be remodeled and enlarged to house the borough’s public works department.

At the banquet hall building, a self-storage business on Center Avenue would be removed, Fromlak said. On the Perry Highway end of the building, a gaming store, Game Masters, would have its lease continued.

The borough owns the building where its offices currently are located on Perry Highway and is considering selling it, he said.

The borough received a $1 million federal grant in 2024 toward the project and is seeking more grant funding, Fromlak said. Work could begin in early 2026, if not sooner.

“All in all, it’s a great project,” he said. “The firemen donated the (banquet hall) building to the borough, and we are building them a new facility as a result of that. Everyone kind of saves all the way around.”

Dave Scholl agreed it’s a good project for the borough, placing all of the municipal services in the middle of West View.

They grew up in West View before the family moved to McCandless in 1968. Dave lives in Economy Borough while Ken lives in Moon. They have a sister, Debbie.

The brothers’ parents, Regis and Marian Scholl, started Scholl’s Bicycle Center in 1955. Marian Scholl, 89, stepped away from the business around 2000; Regis Scholl, a World War II veteran of the Air Force and Marines, was 82 when he died in June 2008.

Regis Scholl had been a drill sergeant in the Marines, David Scholl said.

“You know I didn’t back talk my father,” he said.

The business started as a bike and hobby shop.

“He pretty much did whatever he had to do to get started,” Dave Scholl said of his father, adding that his mother did a lot there, too. “She did everything. She built bikes. She waited on people.”

The bicycle business took off during the bike boom of the 1960s.

“Everybody wanted a Schwinn,” Dave Scholl said. “We were super busy from then to the late ’80s.”

BMX bikes were big in the ’80s, when Dave Scholl said they sold 10 different brands and had their own race team. They also sold skateboards.

The business got tougher as manufacturers began opening their own stores to sell their bikes, Dave Scholl said. They sold Trek bicycles at a second location in Marshall until Trek opened its own store nearby.

Repairs became a big part of their business.

“When covid hit, we had 200 bikes in stock. At the end of covid, we had no bikes in stock and we couldn’t get bikes for a year,” Dave Scholl said. “It put a lot of shops out of business. Our service is what put us through a lot of that.”

Repairs are what they’re mostly doing now as they sell everything down.

“It’s been a good run,” Dave Scholl said. “It’s time to fade off into the sunset.”