Tracy and Mary Talley (TMT) became interested in electric assist bicycles about three years ago.
Tracy (a professional photographer for over 30 years) has enjoyed his hobby of bicycling for some years now. However standard bicycles can be very hard on the knee joints especially when the terrain is hilly. He discovered that electric hub motor kits can be purchased and installed in practically any kind of bike including recumbents. This makes the bicycling experience more enjoyable because of the assist received when starting off and when climbing hills. These are the times when knee strain can become a problem and the e-assist eliminates any knee strain. When browsing the web early in 2007, Tracy came upon Liberty E-Bikes and decided to give them a call. After talking at some length to Kurt Heisey the owner and Kevin Moyer the manager, Tracy and Mary decided to take a trip to Pennsylvania in May to meet with them and view the Liberty operation first hand. Nestled in the hills of northern Pennsylvania is Knoxville which is the home of Liberty Enterprises, a successful seamless gutter manufacturing company. Kurt became familiar with the Hongdu aircraft company on his many trips to China and was impressed with their high quality products. Liberty now imports and sells some of the finest, most innovative and cost effective electric bicycles found in the USA. To Tracy they are superior in every way when compared with the cobbled together bikes that he had been used to working with. These machines are purposely built to be e-bikes, which means they are beefed up in all the right places such as the wheels and spokes. The batteries are located down low in the frame under the rider instead of up on a rack over the rear wheel which can really effect the handling. All of the bikes can start off by just twisting the throttle grip without pedaling. These discoveries plus the down to earth, friendly and helpful attitude of the folks at Liberty won them over so the next step was to become distributors for the Northern Illinois region before the day was over. Our philosophy and attitude is the same as Liberty's when it comes to distributing these wonderful machines:
Our thought is that if we care more about people, than about things, money, success, or career, then true success will follow. If we are not concerned about the welfare of those we meet, but only pursue our own gains, then our customers cannot trust us. Therefore, all our actions, decisions, products, and even the thoughts and intentions of our hearts need to be for others, not just ourselves.
After all, we believe that the most important things of life go on for eternity: our relationships with others and our relationship with God.
