Mary Ellen and Dick Spirek of Arlington Heights collect bicycles the way some people collect matchbooks from restaurants or bumper stickers from faraway family vacation destinations or, like kids, lightning bugs on a warm summer evening.
For the Spireks, cycling is more than a hobby, though. It is a passion.
Staunch supporters of the save-the-environment movement long before it was fashionable to think that way, they saw cycling not only as a fun form of recreation but also as a way to save the Earth.
They`ve been doing it-and advocating cycle, don`t drive-since they were married 30 years ago. Instead of fine china or linens and pillowcases, the then-newlyweds filled their home with tires, fenders, handlebars-any and every type of bicycling apparatus they could get their hands on.
Dick, 54, a tinkerer since he was a kid growing up in Rolling Meadows, liked to combine the parts, fashioning them into embarrassingly crude, but always original and beautiful-in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder, one-speed machines. Those machines fast became the Spireks` ticket to cruising freedom, as they took them on nightly cycling adventures filled with fun and fresh air.
For a while, the couple cruised alone. Then in 1963, Lisa was born, with Lori following next year, and finally, Ricin 1968.
The physical encumbrances of parenthood didn`t faze the diehard cycling enthusiasts. They simply strapped the babes into flimsy makeshift babyseats atop their bikes, tacked on bumper stickers that proclaimed ”Don`t Pollute, Ride a Bike,” and cruised Arlington Heights, much to the awe and
astonishment-not to mention snickers-of their neighbors.
”Adults with kids on bikes, those people are crazy,” is how Mary Ellen, 52, known as ”M-E” (pronounced Emmie) to her family and friends, remembers observers saying. ”Is that supposed to be for exercise or what?”
It wasn`t too long, however, before all their friends and previously cynical neighbors seemed to be hopping on bikes with kids in tow. But many, like the Spireks, were frustrated in their search for a decent set of wheels. Not everyone could craft cycles the way Dick could.
”I`ll never forget when my daughter was 9. We were trying to find a really good bike for her so she could join us on a 100-mile ride,” recalled M-E, who had grown up in Chicago. ”We had to travel all the way to Deerfield to find what we wanted, this great 24-inch red bike they had in the window. I remember the owner saying, `You know we get an awful lot of customers from your area. Someone really should open a good bicycle shop out there.` ”
That`s when inspiration struck. Dick and M-E remember looking at each other, grins spreading across their faces and thinking: ”Why not us?”
So in 1974, with $10,000 from their savings and another $10,000 borrowed from family and friends, the couple opened Bikes Plus in a tiny, one-story building on Rand Road in Arlington Heights. For the first five years, every ounce of profit was poured back into the business.
”We were so poor, that when my kids` school would ask me to bring in the juice for snack time, I couldn`t. I couldn`t afford it,” recalled M-E. ”But we loved every second of what we were doing.”
Indeed, today the Spireks` passion for cycling has grown beyond Arlington Heights. Besides their Bikes Plus stores in Arlington Heights and Barrington, a third store is set to open Tuesday in Schaumburg. The two current stores, run by Dick and M-E and their three grown children plus a son-in-law, boast a total of more than $2 million in annual revenues.
The ”plus” in the name includes the large selection of cycling accessories and clothing (they sell 3,000 pairs of biking shorts annually), along with skis and ski rentals to carry sales during the winter months.
The family literally lives and breathes bicycling, working from dawn often until way after dusk seven days a week but taking time for month-long biking vacations during the slower fall months. In fact, two years ago, Dick and M-E sold their Arlington Heights home and moved into a spacious apartment, complete with a hot tub room, they built atop their 14,000-square-foot-they`ve expanded three times-Rand Road shop.
”We`ve taken our hobbies (bicycling and skiing) and made them our life,” said Dick.
The hard work has not gone unnoticed. For each of the last five years, Bikes Plus, which employs 25 cycling enthusiast sales people at its three stores, has been named to one of the most prestigious honor rolls in the bicycle dealer industry: The Top 100 Dealers in the Country, by Bicycle Dealer Showcase Magazine.
”The award has become the benchmark in the industry, something dealers really strive for,” said Tory Roher, publisher of the Culver City, Calif., magazine. And a big industry it is, with Bikes Plus one of about 7,200 bicycle dealerships in the country.
”It`s prestigious, because it`s voted on by the manufacturing reps, the distributors, industry personnel and the dealer owners about their peers, and it`s not just based on volume,” Roher said. ”M-E and Dick have an excellent reputation in the industry because they are progressive dealers, they`ve got great marketing ideas and are very good in attracting people to their merchandise. Part of their allure and their success is that they are a family- owned business. The kids and the parents all love cycling, and they are warm, friendly people. It carries over in their stores.”
Indeed, customers, most of them regulars who travel to the flagship Arlington Heights store from as far away as Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, rave about Bikes Plus. And though there are nine bicycle stores within a 10-mile radius of Bikes Plus, the company has built its customer base to 14,000.
Said Dave Trafton, president of Meadows Credit Union in Rolling Meadows and an avid cyclist who has purchased more than 10 bicycles from Bikes Plus during the last decade: ”The whole family are just tremendous people to work with. You can go to other bike stores, or you can go to Bikes Plus and get the kind of service like I did recently when a bike rack I got three years ago broke. I tried to buy a replacement part and they said, `Hey, just return the rack, here`s a new one.` That is the way they`ve built their business and their reputation.”
But along with service, both Dick and M-E concede that part of their success has been being in the right place at the right time.
”When we opened in 1974, there was a recession going on and a gas crunch, so people started riding bikes,” recalled M-E. ”Plus, the enthusiasm for bicycling as exercise has grown tremendously. We`ve had sales increases every year.”
Indeed, during the last two decades, bicycling has grown big time. Since 1980, the industry has seen sales jump to 10 million bikes annually from 1 million a year in the `70s. By the end of 1991, the industry nationwide had grown to $3 billion in sales of bikes and accessories.
And the Chicago area is a major player in that market, according to the Schaumburg-based Chicago-area Bicycle Dealers Association. In 1990, almost 600,000 bicycles were sold locally.
What`s more, bicycling ranks as the third most popular sport in the nation, following exercise walking and swimming, according to the Mt. Prospect-based National Sporting Goods Association. An estimated 55.3 million Americans ride bicycles for sport or pleasure, according to Dan Kasen, information specialist for the association. ”It`s become an extremely popular sport,” said Kasen.
That fact is no secret to the Spireks but one they admit they didn`t predict in 1974 when they went out on a limb to open up shop. Just a couple years before, they, along with four other local couples and cycling enthusiasts, had founded the Arlington Heights Bicycle Association and were hoping their enthusiasm for the sport would spread.
At the time the Spireks were living in Arlington Heights and Dick was working full time as a salesman for a lighting fixtures manufacturer in Chicago and teaching bicycle repair evenings at the University of Chicago. He`d learned the skill as a child, watching the neighbor near his
grandfather`s Elgin home tinker away in his garage.
”He`d gotten all these bonus checks and since I was so German frugal, I`d saved them all so we had $10,000 to try to make a go of it,” said M-E, who remembers making the first bicycle orders with distributors at the family`s dining room table. During the bike shop`s fledgling years, Dick kept his daytime job while M-E manned the store. Then Dick would come home from work and spend the evening repairing or assembling bikes. (All the cycles sold at Bikes Plus arrive in boxes from the manufacturers and are assembled in the basement of the Arlington Heights store. There, about 2,000 ready-to-be-sold cycles are suspended from the ceiling.)
The business started small, with the Spireks selling a limited selection of four lines of bicycles, three of which are no longer produced. Today, Bikes Plus sells an extensive line of cycles including Trek, Specialized, Giant, Diamond Back, Fuji, Univega, Klein and Burli. Plus, anything and everything else associated with the sport.
The turning point came about five years into the business as the demand for cycles accelerated nationwide and word-of-mouth about this couple and their dedication to the sport spread through the area.
Said Steve Albertson, president of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation:
”When it comes right down to it, M-E and Dick are two of the strongest advocates of bicycling around. They`ve worked hard to promote all aspects of cycling, not just for recreation but for commuting, too.
”Cyclists admire their dedication, because they know they live and breathe it, that they are not just in it for retail sales but that they truly believe in it. Then beyond that, they`ve made a niche for themselves in their store because of it`s unique and exciting presentation of the merchandise.”
Unlike most chrome-bright sportshops, Bikes Plus stores are rich in the warm woods of antiques and wooden racks made by Dick.
When they`re not selling bicycles, the Spirek family can be found supporting the major bicycling races in the Chicago area, including the annual Chicagoland Lung Association fundraiser. Bikes Plus often operates the sag wagon for the races, offering on-the-spot bike repairs and assistance to riders along the route. In addition, the store has earned kudos among area cyclists for its annual Snow White 60 race, a 12- to 60-mile event just for women. Men are encouraged to volunteer to help along the route.
The idea for the race, like many of the promotions throughout the years, was M-E`s. She also is the marketing copywriter behind the regularly changing billboard outside the Arlington Heights store.
Last year during the Gulf War, the sign proclaimed: ”Beat Iraq, Ride a Bike.” Currently, it urges passersby to come in and purchase or repair their bikes early before the spring rush.
Active members of several organizations dedicated to cycling, Dick and son-in-law Sean McCaleb serve on the board of directors for The Chicagoland Bicycle Dealers Association, an organization Dick helped found. M-E, is a former board member of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation and recently was appointed to the Governor`s Council on Health and Physical Fitness.
Although the Spireks and their children work and often take bicycling vacations together, functioning in a family business has its ups and downs.
”One of the reasons we opened the second store is because there were two many chiefs and not enough Indians running the Arlington Heights store,” said McCaleb, who with his wife, Lisa (the Spireks` eldest daughter), operates the Barrington Bikes Plus store, opened in 1988.
”Lisa and I had been thinking for a long time of some day opening our own shop,” McCaleb said. ”The family was kind of against that, so they opened this one and now we run it. And we do all get along real well. We even take vacations-bicyling of course-together, and I don`t know many people that do that with their in-laws.”
For Lisa, 28, operating the Barrington store is a lifetime dream come true. She remembers: ”For my 13th birthday I got my own bicycle tool kit. I was so excited because my parents paid me $1 a bike for repairs. Other kids would watch TV after school, but I had a blast in the back of the shop fixing bikes.”
Younger siblings Lori, 27, and Ric, 23, are slated to operate the Schaumburg store.
”Eventually, we`d like to turn the stores completely over to the kids,” said M-E.
Meanwhile, they`re happy working seven days a week-days that often stretch from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.-and taking off for lengthy three- to five-week vacations during the slower fall season. They recently returned from a bike tour of Sanibel Island, Fla., and have done New Zealand, Alaska, Colorado and Arizona, to name just a few locales, on bikes.
Said Dick: ”It`s a real thrill to see a child of 16 years ago whom I sold his first bicycle to come back and buy bicycles for his young family. That`s the kind of business we`ve grown into, from our first handful of customers to the 14,000 we`ve accumulated on our mailing list who keep coming back.”
