Photograph by Kennedy Garmong
Northside’s Spun Bicycles feels like your average mom and pop shop upon your first step inside—Judi LoPresti greets guests as they make their way to the counter, dazzlingly bedecked with green zebra print and orange decals, while her husband Dominic sits at the repair center, preparing to fix spokes, pedals, and everything in between on a queue of bikes dropped off for repairs. Customers check out wacky cycling accessories shelved amid quirky décor, which includes images of skulls, clowns, unicorns, and tons upon tons of neon colors, among bikes available in almost any hue.
As the owners of Spun, the LoPrestis’ mission is to repair, restore, and complete custom builds for customers’ bikes and wheels. Many patrons bring in the parts that they need and drop off the bike; Dominic places orders for any other needed parts depending on customers’ requests.
The wait time on repairs can have a three to five day lead, with custom builds and restorations taking longer, depending on the time frame required for each project. “We see every wheel size and every discipline at Spun,” says Judi. The couple can revitalize road bikes, high-end mountain bikes, department store bikes, BMX, and children’s bikes—two years ago, they even repaired a 99-year-old bike.
Photograph by Kennedy Garmong
After more than 13 years in business, the LoPrestis have developed a loyal customer base and show no sign of slowing down. They are currently fixing more bikes than ever, and they certainly aren’t pigeonholed into selling a specific type of bike either—their 1,500-square-foot store displays a range of brands, including Kona, Surly, and Jamis.
Judi will tell you that she wears many hats, handling the books, banking, and orders for the store. Dominic, meanwhile, calls himself the “grease monkey” working on the bike repair stands. “People bring their wheels because that’s what Dominic’s known for. He can do any repair,” Judi touts, while Dominic adds, “I couldn’t do what I do without my wife.”
The couple’s love first blossomed in a bike shop. Dominic formerly worked at Price Hill’s Bicycles & More in 2007, where he taught Judi how to clip into a bike. Sparks flew over the pair’s shared love of cycling, and in 2010, the two tied the knot in Las Vegas during Interbike, a U.S. cycling industry trade show.
When the opportunity arose for them to open their own bike shop three years later, it was a no-brainer, Judi says, for them to do it.
Photograph by Kennedy Garmong
Judi and Dominic both practically grew up on bikes. Judi has depended on them as her main mode of transportation since she was a child—so much so that she didn’t get a driver’s license until she was 30 years old—and used to partake in endurance sports, cross-training and triathlons. While she’s since squeezed the brakes on competitive racing, she continues to ride for fun, fitness, and pleasure.
Dominic, meanwhile, was surrounded by bike shops growing up. In his workshop at Spun, he has the same stool that he sat on in his grandfather’s garage as a little boy. His hometown of Dayton, Ohio is a hot bed for “a lot of the history of BMX,” he says, and when he first laid his eyes on the ramps, he knew wanted to give it a try. He started riding BMX at only 10 years old and became a professional racer four years later.
From mountain biking to cyclocross, the LoPrestis have pedaled through many forms of biking. “We love all bikes, but old-school steel bikes and vintage bikes mixed with new-school parts are especially fun—and, of course, BMX,” says Judi. In the shop, Judi still has an old Motobecane frame with new gear and bright, orange wheels that Dominic built her in 2008. She refuses to sell it.
Photograph by Kennedy Garmong
Beyond repairs, Spun sells used bikes at prices that can fit a range of budgets. Judi and Dominic try to make sure that everyone who walks into their shop has affordable access to a bicycle; if they can’t, they’ll send customers over to MoBo Bicycle, a nonprofit cooperative and community garden, also in Northside, focused on making cycling more accessible.
In most bike shops, it’s uncommon for customers to come into the workshop and tooling area to see the behind-the-scenes work of their bike being repaired. But at Spun, that is a built-in aspect of the business. “I bring my customers back, show them things and walk them through stuff,” Dominic says. “I think the customers appreciate seeing where their money’s going and when things are explained to them.” Dominic has serviced customers from the east to the west coasts of the U.S. and even Europe and Australia. “There’s nobody that does it better,” he boasts.
Spun specializes in custom wheels and bikes. Customers often make specialized requests for repairs, upgrades, and customizations, but other times, they’ll simply let Dominic do what he does best. He says he usually feels someone’s vibes before he gets his hands dirty on the bike chains, but never tries to sacrifice performance over aesthetics. “I don’t hard sell anybody,” Dominic says. “At the end of the day, you have to ride it. You have to like it—it doesn’t really matter if I like it.”
Photograph by Kennedy Garmong
On a typical day, the shop speeds through about seven to nine bikes before rolling them back out through the doors. Early in the pandemic, Dominic completed more than 800 repairs in six months from March to September of 2020. But after a painful back injury and undergoing surgery in October later that year, it became challenging for him to even touch bikes.
The initial injury started in January 2020 due to a buildup of nerve and back pain. Between several hospital visits and disk ruptures afterwards, Judi and Dominic had to close the shop for a two-week period in October 2020.
Such an injury changed everything, taking Dominic completely out of BMX. “After his surgery, it took months and months of healing,” Judi says. But without BMX, bikes, or even lifting weights, Dominic found solace in making art and learning how to rebuild speakers in 2022.
In need of a new outlet, pursuing artistic hobbies became a way for him to heal. An engineer without a degree, Dominic is currently working on building Japanese horn speakers from the 1970s, and even held his first art show, in which he sold 11 paintings. Customers still stop by to buy more of his art, too.
Photograph by Kennedy Garmong
It’s just one example of how Spun has integrated itself further into the community in the last year alone. Supporting Northside residents and the community at large is important to the LoPrestis—and they want Cincinnati to know it.
So, when Renée Good and Alex Pretti—a mountain biker—were fatally shot in Minneapolis, Minnesota by ICE agents in January earlier this year, Judi took the lead organizing “We Ride in Unity,” a community short ride in remembrance of Pretti, alongside other local organizations such as North South Baking Company, Tri-State Trails, and Queen City Bike. “Alex was one of us, could’ve been any of us, so as we mourn, all of us can come together in unity to remember Alex for what he was,” says an Instagram post by Spun Bicycles announcing the ride.
Roughly 112 people showed up in 12-degree weather in Over-the-Rhine for the ride. “That really meant a lot to me,” says Judi. “So when it comes to stuff like that, I am in charge.”
But the best part about serving their community comes back to the basics. To Judi, it’s “seeing people ride a bike like they are a kid again, admiring that goofy smile when they ride away or just repairing a bike that is an actual vehicle for someone, so they can get to work without any worry.”
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