Week Wrap Up (10/4-10/10/10)

The week started with a few Spidermonkey's running the Bucktown 5k. Running? Hell yes (directed at Matt Smith). Cycling season is almost over! Congrats to Dean, Trent, Joe, and Jesus for completing the run!

This week was our first women's QnA featuring Kristen Meshberg and what a fantastic showing - over 20 girl's! Thanks to Get a Grip for the location and to Kristen for all the tips and advice! We all had a great time!

17 riders including Spidermonkey founders Nate Iden and Matt Smith met at Element on Saturday morning. To our pleasant surprise, Vanessa (resting for the Chicago marathon) was there with coffee and donuts! Not too many chances to get out on a 70 degree day in October, we took full advantage of it!

Then, onto the Northwestern game where 20 kegs of beer were poured! It was crazy...crazy fun! And some of us even went to the game to continue the craziness. Can't wait til the next game!

Sunday. 10/10/10. Marathon day. We mixed things up a bit. Some of us were course bike marshal's who got to ride in front of the elite women, while others ran, and others cheered. We all drank 312! Congratulations to Trent and Judith on a successful first marathon! We all had a great time and it was so much fun to see all the Spidermonkey's in the crowd cheering us on. It really helped keep us moving...thanks to everybody! Can't wait til next year!

Then it was off to race cross at Dan Ryan Woods with a total of eight Spidermonkeys racing across four different catogories. Chicago Cross Cup #3 Elvis Cross. The main attraction for this course was the first hill, which chewed up and spit out many. A few tried to ride up the single track portion with limited success, running up was really the only option. The twisting downhill also took down few Monkeys as well. Not to worry "the landing was like a bed of soft hay." All in all a fun day of racing. The free fried chicken and peanut butter and banana sandwiches made for a perfect pre race meal. More fun and more reasons why many of us are hooked on Cyclocross! Congrats go out to MIke Shea, Grace, Monica, Lil' V, Matt Reizman, Dan "the bearded one/back to back" Pollard, Geoff Scott and Ken Mitchell.

Next week: Cross races on Saturday in Wauconda, IL and Sunday in Carpentersville, IL. Hope to see many of you out there heckling or racing or both!

Spidermonkey of the week: Ken "Prince of Fashion" Mitchell

OG, Old School, The Orginal Six, Bears vs. Packers, the Alpha and Omega. I've been with Spidermonkey Cycling before day one. Riding the old Higher Gear rides, racing on and off for what seems like forever.

I've known "Mean Dean" or Chuckie as some may refer to him for awhile now and I can remember "big" Vanessa's first time ride out of Higher Gear Fullerton. I recall one of the first planning conversations post the first Evanston crit, I didn't race that year as I was just moving back to Chicago. The talk of this new team seemed serious and I was in for certain, I'd missed my riding pals while out East. So figured we'd have at least 5 to 10 of us at most, which would have been a success. The first party at RVB was just that, 10, maybe 12 tops including the dog. Well three years later I think it's at 75+ memebers (hope to see more of you try racing) and I'm constantly amazing by this little thing we call Spidermonkey. I've been on a few other teams/clubs and I think overall this is the most welcoming to the others in our families that don't ride or understand completely our need/desire to race bicycles. That's a big reason I'm still with SM, they treat your personal family like SM family.

As for me, well I've always thought I should have been born in Europe, as I have an strangely high level of pure love for cycling (as much as I do for baseball). Watching Le Tour since age 8 and with my current job of bike fitting at Get A Grip I try to extend that joy to others. The plan is to be on a bike the rest of my life. And for that matter I think you should as well. See you on the road, oh yes and now the dirt as well (CX my new fall/winter master).