current update in progress.

Our store history with the Emery family.
After our history, theres' info on Brent Emerys racing career and how bicycle fitting has developed as a mainstay at Emerys

Marilyn & Richard Emery founded Emerys in 1963 on 23rd and Fond Du Lac Avenue in Milwaukee. A true family business, our home was 2 doors away from the store. An attention to quality work, quality products and personal customer service was and is the foundation of our business.

Over the years, all seven of the Emery children (Christine, Karen, MaryKay, Craig, Brent, Elizabeth and Ben) have worked in the business. Sons, Brent and Ben Emery have chosen to make it their careers and now own the company. Here is a timeline of our business. If you have any anecdotes from the past 4+ decades we've been serving you, please forward them to us.

1963: Richard had worked for 16 years for Allen Bradley prior to seeing his true calling to own his own business. While at Allen Bradley as a machinist and welder, he was on the crew that made the hands for the iconic worlds largest 4 faced clock at the Allen Bradley plant. He had also been involved in local politics, even assisting with John Kennedys presidential campaign locally, as well as running in the race for state senate.

After they had bought an existing bike shop around the corner from their home, increasing the business was Richard and Marilyns first priority. They were creative at thinking outside the lines. In addition to the day-to-day in-store business, Richard secured a contract with the local Sears store to to warranty work for their bike division, he secured contracts from a few local furniture stores doing welding for metal chairs and tables. Once, he even bought SEVEN semi loads full of toys and odds and ends from JC Pennys and filled all four floors of their business with tables to spread the goods out for sale. That was like an ant farm there were so many customers. As far as bicycles went, the big sellers of the day were 3 speed bikes, cruiser bikes and kids bikes.

1966: To draw more total people through the doors, Richard rented out some showroom space to Len Snell, who sold TV's. We also sold and sharpened Ice Skates during the winters... seems like the winters were snowier and longer then to be able to skate more often. Brands of bikes we sold back then were Vista, Columbia, Roger Riviere, Ranger Ultra, and Jeunet among others. Jeunet was a very light French bike, one of the first truely light bikes in the US. We were their first dealer in this part of the US. Richard saw and corrected an alignment problem they had, got ahold of the factory to let them know how to fix it, and the president of Jeunet personally thanked Richard on his next trip to the US! Road bikes were starting to sell.

1967: There was a time of trouble in Milwaukee that affected the entire city. The Riots of 1967. Our business was on a corner that overlooked an intersection. The lower front face of the building had a flat roof with a ledge on it. From that point, the local police took up a command post, along with Richard and a few others. Because they held firm, that intersection was not looted or burned. We become a Raleigh bicycle dealer.

1968: Emerys opened a second location on 64th & Lisbon Avenue. A smaller store with living quarters behind it. It is amazing how small it really was, but with lots of product and great service, it was successful. Christmas sales of bicycles at that time rivaled sales in spring. Bicycles are one of the great Christmas gifts. By 2009, electronics have displaced a lot of those sales. Thoughtful parents still buy their children a bike for Christmas. Just ask any child who received a bike for Christmas, and they can tell you a story about it. See if they can remember which electronic widget that can name from one or two Christmas's ago??

1973: Seeing the opportunity to grow again, Richard and Marilyn bought an empty gas station corner at 100th Street & Lisbon Avenue for a new store. Richard was innovative in keeping the original structure and adding on to it to make a larger store than their other two locations. At the time there were abandoned gas stations all over the city. The end result was a great use for the property. The Emerys won an award from the city for their forward thinking. In retrospect, how ironic that today the world is looking to bikes to solve part of the energy crisis, and Emerys solved part of their bicycle problem with an old gas station. The gas crisis had people buying bicycles at a record pace. Road bikes were selling at a rapid rate, despite what we see now as terrible seats! Thank goodness todays seats are quite comfortable, and in shapes for everyone.

1975: Thought we had been doing basic bike fitting since we opened in 1963, Emerys made decision to start fitting all customers more technically. Designing custom geometry for custom frames as needed for our elite customers, and changing out bars/stems/seats for any bike to really complete a perfect fit for all customers became the norm. Customers quickly gave feedback that the extra time or cost to make these changes were well worth the effort.

1976: By this time, Emerys had condensed the other stores into their 100th & Lisbon Avenue location to focus all their energy into the best service they could.

1977: Emerys began advertising Brents fitting services in local racing publications.

1978: After a peak in the bicycle business from a few year earlier, and combined with high inflation and interest rates, the economy was rough on the bicycle business. The Emerys had even considered selling their home to save the business.

1979: A rough winter came and went, the economy improved some, the sun came out, and people started buying bicycles again. That previous year had shown the tenacity and dedication of the Emerys to their business. In late 1979, their son, Brent, left the business for the dream of traveling the world as a bicycle racer. More on that below.

1980's: Mountain Bicycles are coming into their own. Emerys became one fo the first stores to carry Girvin dual suspension bikes. Girvin became Proflex, which eventually became K2.

1981: Brent designed one of the worlds first aero bikes with a sloping forward frameset, "bullhorn" handlebars, and smaller front wheels. The very first bike was built, using blueprints Brent created, by custom framemaker John Stinsmen of Veloce Cycles in Allentown, Pennsylvania. That bike was the impetus for the USA Cycling team to further develop into what were later dubbed the "Funny Bikes" used in the 1984 Olympics to set world and Olympic records.

1982: Richard brings on the Trek Bicycles line. Over the years, we will build our Trek business to be consistently in their top 100 dealers in the USA.

1984: Brents Olympic success in Los Angeles. Read Brents story below.

1985: Brent comes back into the family business fulltime after a successfull racing carreer culminating in an Olympic Silver Medal at the Los Angeles Olympics. Triathlon was still the new kid on the block, and Emerys was carrying TT bikes fashioned with features that Brent had a hand in making possible.

1987: Upon hearing about a new innovation Brent developed his own version of aero clip-on handlebars. Initially he was interested in using them for a single day 224 mile time trial from LaCrosse, Wi to Milwaukee, WI. They worked so well, he demonstrated them to the US Team at the Pan American Games TTT warm-up at the Indy 500 track. That same year, Brent outfitted a few competitors with them for use in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Naturally, bike fit positioning had to be different when outfitting our clients with aero bars for triathlon, and so we've been developing our skills for new school triathlon positioning ever since.

1989: Emerys expands again, this time opening a store on west Main Street in Menomonee Falls, with Ben Emery running that location initially with his father, then managing it overall. The fitness equipment sales side of our business was growing in large part, to Ben's efforts at that location.

1990's: Emerys expands our triathlon, road and fitness equipment business with more products and knowledge. Never letting our recreational customers take a back seat, we've created a very interesting mix of product that caters to all fitness and cycling groups.

1993'ish: Marilyn Emery retired after doing the bookkeeping (and keeping the peace in the family business) since 1963.

1994: We move our Menomonee Falls store to a larger location on Appleton Avenue.

1995: Richard Emery retires, and much to the amazement of his family, it agreed with him. We all thought he'd be a bit uncertain about retirement as he had shown so much passion and dedication to the business. Good for him! He had been working since he was 9 years old. A couple successful carreers, a political carreer and comunity involvement, and a large family. Not bad for a baby of the depression that did not finish high school. He's one of the smartest people we (and a lot of other people) know.

1998: We start our emerys.com site. Oh, how we cringe looking back at our feeble first stab. If you're interested, click here to see it.

1999: Ben finally finds a suitable building for us to buy in Menomonee Falls. We move from Appleton Avenue to our current location on Main Street w blocks west of Hwy 45. We bring on Cervelo bicycles, which will prove to be a great line for Emerys.

2000: The Y2K non scare. At least it made us take our computer system seriously.

2001: 9/11. Changed a lot of things for us and a lot of people. #1 was that it brought more people to pray and to appreciate our great country.

2003: Ben brings Landice treadmills to our business, which is a mainstay of our fitness business.

more details to come...

 

 

Brents racing carreer.

Cycling resume for Brent Emery Competing since 1973 Won over 150 victories to date. Over 25 state cycling championships Victories in Road, 1Km TT, 4 Km TT, 4 km TTT, Match Sprint, Points Race, 10 Mile, Road Race, Criterium, 25 Mile TT, 40 km TT, Cyclocross, Mountain

Former world record holder. Worlds fastest average speed in races over 100 miles 1981, Vuelta a Chile, 10th stage, 174km in 3h33m25sec, average speed 29.2mph

Former Pan American Record Holder 1983 4Km TTT, 4:21.4

Former national record holder 18 year olds 25 mile time trial,

1976 National championships 58m12sec 18 year olds 1 Km TT, 1976 National championships 1m 10.4 sec

1981 Sea level 1KmTT 1:08:03

1983 4Km TTT, 4:21.4

National Championships 1st 1980 1 Km TT, 1st 1981 1 Km TT, 1st 1983 Points Race

many other National Championship top 10 placings in 1 Km TT, Match Sprint, 4 Km TT, 4 Km TTT, Points Race, 25 Mi TT, Cyclocross,

US Pro Championships, 1981, Baltimore, MD 12th place (while an amateur on US National team)

New Zealand SummerGames 1981 an alternate Olympic Competition for the 32 countries that boycotted the Moscow Games. Silver Medal 1Km TT,5th place road race

World Cup-Track 1981 Three 1st places, other top 10 placings Points race, Match Sprint, Scratch races, Olympic Sprint

World Championships 6th place 4 Km TTT, 1981 Czechoslovakia 9th place 1 Km TT, 1981 Czechoslovakia

Olympics 1976 regional alternate 1Km TT 1980 #1 spot 1Km TT (note: US boycotted Moscow Games) 1984 Silver Medal 4 Km TTT

1992 Olympic trials, Points race finalist

Competed in 16 countries with victories in 9 countries

Recent years competing locally in Masters and Pro events criteriums, road, track cyclocross and mountain when the opportunity presents Coaching and fitting many of the top athletes in our area Athletes I have coached or fitted have won their category in the International Cycling Classic, won many state championships, placed top 5 in national championships, and won many triathlons including the 2002 & 2003 Wisconsin Ironman Pro womens winner.

1973: Brent Emery, son of the Emery, did his first bike race on a dare from another Emerys employee. Brent was 15 years old and there was very little information available about the sport in print and most of the advice was passed on from rider to rider. After a few years, he started to recognize the importance of small changes in fit and began setting up his bike for different types of race courses as well as the different specialties he competed in (flat criterium vs. hilly road races, track sprinting vs. pursuit, cyclocross vs. mountain).

1978: Brent wins his first Superweek Stage

1981: Brent designed the first of the new generation of Olympic style of bikes in the U.S. with the bullhorn handlebars, small front wheel and sloping top tube. That bike was the first bike of its type raced in international competition in the Free World. (note: the East Germans were working on a similar style of bike before Brent, but Brent got his into international competition before they did.) That bike was later on display for 4 years in the Milwaukee Public Museum.

1981: Brent wins the 174km 10th stage of the Vuelta Ciclista de Chile in a time of 3h 33m 25sec for the fastest average speed pace the world had ever seen in any race over 100 miles, professional or amateur. A record 29.2 mph for 107.5 miles. That record stood for over 15 years. At the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, Brent placed 6th & 9th.

 

1984: Brent is on the U.S. Olympic team that wins a Silver Medal in the exciting 4000 meter team pursuit event.

1985: Brent retires from the international circuit. Over his racing career he competed 16 countries. He is one of a very few cyclists in the history of the sport to achieve a very high level of international results in all disciplines and distances of the sport. He goes to work as the plant manager for a bike manufacturer (Detel) headquartered in Green Bay, WI. Because of problems with one of that companies investors, the company was forced to close 7 months later. Brent came back into the family business to work with his brother Ben, who was now taking on a more important role in their business.

1987: Taking a lead from a "rumor" about a new handlebar (Scott bars) allowing a new way to get aerodynamic, Brent designed one of the world's first aero bars. Aerobars immediately were recognized as a major breakthrough in going faster. He used it in June of that year in the 225 mile Race Across Wisconsin, a single day individual time trial from Lacrosse to Milwaukee. That same year, those aero bars were used in the Hawaiian Ironman by a couple of Wisconsin competitors from the Tri All 3 tri team that Brent coached in the 1980's.

2002: Customers are now traveling from other states to work with Brent for technical fitting for road and triathlon. The 2002 Wisconsin Ironman Pro women's winner, Heather Gollnick, has spent a number of hours getting her position fine-tuned by Brent. Her results speak for highly for her and our services. A particular aspect of the theory Brent has put into the triathlon fittings setting the position to enhance the athlete's ability to run better after the bike leg. Nearly every triathlete Brent has fitted has immediately gone on to set personal records with better bike splits and also a faster run.

2003: Paul Swift visited Emerys recently. Paul is the creator of "The Wedge", angled pieces to go between the cleat and the shoe for correcting foot angle. Paul has visited hundreds of shops promoting his product and doing fitting clinics. He was impressed with how we go about the fitting process and mentioned "you are one of the top 5 or 10 shops in North America for fitting". Most of our other factory reps say we are most certainly the best fitting store they are aware of in this part of the US. Our goal is to be #1.

2004: Heather Gollnick gets fitted on her new Q.R. with custom aero bars that Brent made for her, and goes on to blow away the field at Wildflower. She credits Brent with being a part of the win!

Over the years, the staff of Emerys two stores has done involved fittings for over 45,000 people. Continually searching for more precise ways to fit customers has led Brent to develop criteria for making those subjective decisions for varying the position for each customer. This is why you should buy you next bike at Emerys, and your friends should buy their next bike at Emerys, and their friends, and so on.... Call ahead, talk to Brent and we can get the bike of your dreams built to you!