Gears2You, the bicycle repair shop located in the Riverside train station, is expanding across the Des Plaines River.
Owner Peter Janunas told the Landmark that the second Gears2You location, at 9219 Broadway Ave. in Brookfield off Eight Corners, had a soft opening Saturday, March 1. A grand opening with a ribbon cutting is set for March 15.
He said he’d always wanted to expand the business beyond one location, but the search for a second storefront began in earnest about six months ago.
“At this place — I mean, have you been in here? It’s small,” he said in a phone interview Feb. 26 from his Riverside shop, 90 Bloomingbank Rd. “I have maybe 300 square feet, but I needed more space. I’ve just outgrown this space.”
Janunas said the new store is more than a thousand square feet in size with a better layout for fixing bikes. When asked what excites him the most about the expansion, he named the increase footage.
“Having more space, and then just the amount of traffic that goes through there,” he said. “It butts up to the back of a school there that so many people go by now, and being able to do events. Really, the space, having more space, having more visibility. I’m really looking forward to it.”
He said he reached out to village staff in Brookfield to ask for help finding Gears2You a new home.
“Brookfield is great. It’s very bike-friendly like Riverside. There’s Cycle Brookfield there. There’s the bike race there,” he said. “As far as Eight Corners, I know their [economic development commission] is really working to build up Eight Corners with the sheds that are over there … the incubators. That area is just booming. I looked at a few different spots, down on Grand [Boulevard], down on Prairie [Avenue], and this seemed like a good spot.”
Janunas said he planned to keep both shops open for at least a few months.
“I’d like to, ideally, keep the Riverside one open, at least through the summer. I didn’t want to completely close one and open one on the same day.”
But the Riverside store’s ultimate fate?
“To be determined. It depends on how things go,” he said. “I haven’t figured out exactly hours yet and days I’ll be open here. I’ll probably open a few days a week and then keep the rest by appointment … If you wanted a flat [tire changed] or something quick, it could be done on site. If it’s a bigger project, I’d take it in like I do now, do it at the Brookfield location and bring it back.”
Janunas said he would aim to staff the Riverside store on weekends and one other day each week. He’s already hired four staff members to prepare for the summer season.
While the expansion might seem rife for a connection with Cycle Brookfield, the community group working to make the village safer for cyclists, Janunas said there’s not much room to grow there.
“My relationship with Cycle Brookfield is already pretty strong, since I’m the treasurer on the board,” he said. “I don’t know if I can get any stronger over at Cycle Brookfield.”
He said that despite the move, he plans to get more involved with Ride Riverside’s monthly slow rides.
He also wants to start a new event to help residents give back and clear out their garages.
“I’m in the early stages of working with Working Bikes to do an event where, sometime in the next month or so, people that have bikes that they want to donate — we’ll have it on a Saturday, we’ll have everyone come and drop off bikes they don’t want anymore,” he said. “This time of year, a lot of people, especially with kids’ bikes, they don’t know what to do with them, so they donate them … I haven’t decided on a date yet, but it will probably be the end of March or the beginning of April sometime.”
While Janunas said he wants to open another Gears2You location someday, don’t start holding your breath.
“I gotta get through this one first. I haven’t even opened this one yet, but I would love to,” he said of expanding further. “I have a very unique business where I just do service; I don’t sell bikes. It works out better this way, because I don’t have to worry about a showroom. I don’t have to worry about paying people to sell the bikes. I don’t have to worry about discounting bikes. I just fix them, and there’s a lot of bikes out there that need fixing.”
