Scott Lunt (l.) and Massimo Cipolletta stand together in the garage of Acme Cycle Chicago. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Jamie Lynn Ferguson

BELMONT-CRAGIN — When Massimo Cipolletta was just a boy, his family traveled from Chicago to Northern Italy every summer. It was there he fell in love.

Behind his family's mountain-side home, Cipolletta found two Vespas perched against a shed. He's been riding, working on and collecting motorcycles ever since.

Today, Cipolletta is co-owner of ACME Cycle Chicago at 4613 W. Belmont Ave. with longtime friend and business partner Scott Lunt. The two met thanks to a mutual friend and their love of bikes. They decided to open ACME after they saw shops that service vintage bikes going out of business. With their combined skills, they set out to bring old motorcycles out of the garage and into the streets.

"Massimo had all the skills and I had the financial management expertise," Lunt said. "We had what it takes to make a shop that really works. We've been riding since we were kids — our whole lives. We understand the experience and enjoy improving the motorcycle. We care about doing a good job."

Cipolleta works on a rare Chinese bike. [DNAinfo/Jamie Lynn Ferguson]

Both Lunt, 53, and Cipolleta, 44, live in Belmont-Cragin but previously worked in Elk Grove Village. When it was time for them to choose a location for the shop, close to home was the obvious choice.

"We're both city people so our goal was to end up in the city," Cipolletta said.

The shop focuses primarily on bikes that are older, and works on bringing them into working condition or adding "sensible modifications," Lunt said.

"There's not a lot of shops that do the custom bikes or the old British bikes, and we do," he said. "We bring bikes to a modern standard. We like the looks of the old bikes but sometimes the performance isn't quite there. People want a unique experience; something different than what everyone else has."

Massimo said the styles of vintage motorcycles have revived the scene.

"There's a lot of people pulling non-working motorcycles out of their garages and bringing them in to get them fixed," Lunt said. "We see a lot of bikes that haven't run for a lot of years."

The work doesn't come without challenges, but since opening last fall, the duo hasn't yet hit a problem they couldn't solve. They've worked on everything from a rare Chiang Jiang motorcycle with sidecar to a Di Blasi folding bicycle, which collapses into the size of a carry-on suitcase.

"We call it 'The Addams Family,'" Cipolletta said. "The beautiful, the ugly, the unusual and the weird. We're always willing to take a shot."

Personally, Lunt and Cipolletta own about 20 motorcycles between the two of them.

"They all serve different purposes and they all have different personalities," Lunt said. "I just enjoy the machines. It's nice to bring something back to life."

[DNAinfo/Jamie Lynn Ferguson]

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