After a very spirited Wed night ride that averaged over 20mph for the first 38 miles (pretty darn fast considering the roll out of the city) Jeff Pomerantz overheard one spidermonkey say “We were at vomit speed…nothing came up, but on two occasions I hit 192 on the heart rate monitor and my heart felt like it was in my throat.” No wonder we all stop at JJPeppers to wash down our lunch with High Life’s.
Several of the Spidermonkeys chose to skip the hard effort, and just start drinking. The Goose Island Dock Party was, as usual, a huge success! But when Dean pulls out “the dance” things are heading downhill fast. But just like the early resistance to the Spidermonkey cheer “spidermonkey, spidermonkey, caw, caw, caw” Dean’s dance was catching on by the end of the night.
Congratulations to Brandon Diffenderfer (do last names get any cooler?) on his 5th place finish in the Winfield twilight crit hosted by abd. This is Brandon's best result of the season and is much deserved. Even better for Brandon he nabbed the last pay out spot! Brandon was supported in the 4's by Geoff Scott who had another solid race with a top 25 finish.
To shake things up this week, John Castro led the Sunday ride South to Willow Springs. 55 miles of fun and hills with a fantastic group of spidermokeys. Look for the Sunday ride to head South during the winter months. The hills are great out there! Welcome Grace Chappell to the Spidermonkeys. She has been riding the girls Tuesday morning rides and joined us on the Saturday ride to HP. She is looking over her shoulder in fear of her upcoming initiation into the Spidermonkeys.
Spidermonkey of the Week: Vanessa Lil’ V Buccella
Way back in the Year of our Lord 2008, Vanessa Buccella, after tireless research to find a road bike that was tiny yet tough like her, purchased a black Bianchi Silvia Dama. She had been commuting around and Chicago and LOVED cycling and was inspired by her then boyfriend (we’ll call him Schmoe) to take her riding up a notch.
Now Vanessa began to ride all over Chicagoland, to and from her job in Aurora, up to Highland Park with Schmoe and his buddies, down to Indiana by her lonesome, and though she was enjoying her new speedy bike to the extreme, she was lonely riding by herself most of the time. Vanessa saw many other women on their own solo sojourns, and decided to put out a call to these ladies to see if one of them might enjoy training with her, as all of Vanessa’s friends were hipsters who were minus the gears and the leg-power to keep up. And like any good modern woman, she put up this call on the list of craig. Another young woman heard this call on craig’s list, a woman named, Leah Neaderthal.
After an exciting and chatty ride with Vanessa, Leah had a huge idea, that of making Social Network on the Internets where Chicago Cyclists could digitally meet and greet. Soon after this network, The Chainlink, was launched a certain young gent by the name of Ken Mitchell, used it to put out his OWN call for ladies who bike. He had his own huge idea of starting a bike club with his shop, Get a Grip, just for women. Leah wrote to one of the coolest lady cyclist she knew about this club, which brings us back to Vanessa. Ken hosted a meeting of these women cyclists, which a very enthusiastic Vanessa attended. All throughout the winter of 2008 & 2009 she bugged the shit out of poor poor Ken Mitchell about the prospects of riding for this Get-a-Grip team. Ken didn’t believe that this team would come to fruition, but he needed to get this Vanessa off his back, so he told her, “Go ride with the Spidermonkys!” Vanessa promptly wrote to this team, and when she received a reply from another young small woman named Vanessa, she knew this was the team for her! The only requirement for membership being that she buy a team kit and change her name to Lil’v.
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