MILWAUKEE — Olympic medalist and Milwaukee native Brent Emery is a die-hard cyclist through and through.
"Every Olympics I keep on thinking, 'oh, I could come back again,'" said Emery.
It may be more than 30 years since Emery raced in the 1984 Olympics, but he still remembers it like it was yesterday.
"It was just one of the great moments of my life," said Emery.
Emery was a cyclist representing the United States at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He took home a silver medal after his team came in second place for the men's team pursuit.
"Each one of us on the team did just something special, it was just really a great race," said Emery.
From then on, Emery raced professionally as a cyclist until he was 58 years old. But now he has a new hobby: inventing and building bicycles for kids with disabilities.
"Right now I'm building 3 to 5 disability bikes a week. Every few years we keep on learning new things to do and truly inventing additional things for the disability market," said Emery.
Emery says he started making these kinds of bicycles in order to ensure that everyone could experience the joy of bike riding.
"Some people that can't pedal with their legs, they pedal with the handcycles. It gets people out of the house where they otherwise would be home-bound," said Emery.
And while he doesn't have any more plans to race professionally at the moment, Emery says right now, the best part of his life is being able to make a positive impact on his community.
