Who We Are
Kiddles Sports is a third generation family-owned sporting goods and bicycle store in the Historic Market Square in Lake Forest, Illinois. Established in 1968 by Ron, Millie and Jay Shlifka, our business was built on providing personal, customized and knowledgeable service. Whether you need a pair of running shoes or you are designing custom team uniforms, we are there to help assist and guide you with our extensive knowledge.
Many schools and teams rely on us to provide them with with custom designed uniforms and booster apparel. We also offer screen-printing and embroidery services for all custom athletic team needs.
We are known for our skilled bike mechanics that understand how to tune and adjust all types of bikes, from juvenile to adult and mountain to road. With nearly 20 years of experience and knowledge in the bicycle industry, our head mechanic is able to remedy any bicycle problem.
We strive to make your experience with us a memorable one. Whatever your athletic needs may be, the team at Kiddles Sports can provide you all the answers you need to make sure you are at the top of your game.
"Where good sportsmanship begins"
Innovation and Adaptation
You might ask yourself, what is the significance of sustaining a family business for close to 50 years? We witnessed the invention of 3 sports: Mountain Biking, Rollerblades and Snowboards.
We were the 4th Adidas dealer (1969) in Illinois. On several occasions we provided shoes to the Chicago Bears and Chicago White Sox. A young Nike was a shoe brands we introduced in the late 70's along with Onitsuka Tiger (now Asics). We quickly jumped on board in the 80's with the inception of the Rollerblade brand.
In addition, we were among the first to carry and American brand called Trek. In the late 90's we took to a little known brand, Under Armour, which innovated performance wicking apparel. Howard Head invented the “oversize” tennis racquet and once again we saw the merits of this concept.
In bicycling we saw frames adapt from steel to the likes of aluminum and carbon. It followed suit in other sports as well such as: baseball we saw bats shift to aluminum and in tennis, lacrosse and field hockey to name a few introduce composite materials to shed weight and improve performance.
