Tag: Get a Grip

Spidermonkey of the Week – Ken Dorado

by Ken Dorado

Hi, I'm Ken

Hi, I’m Ken

My fondest memory on a bike was when my dad would take me on a ride. Placing me in the child seat on the back of his mountain bike. Family and bikes – that’s what it’s all about. Riding through the streets near our house, feeling the wind and the rush of speed gave me the feeling of freedom and all that I was exposed to during those early summer days. I was lucky to realize early on that this was a healthy escape. I was in nirvana in a kids bikes seat.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had some form of human powered transportation. My first ride was the special edition Big Wheel® Knight Rider™. Since then I’ve been addicted ever since.

My original ride

My original ride

After wearing off the plastic tires on my Big Wheel®, I graduated up to a red BMX bike in my teens. There, I learned to do my first wheelie.

Diamondback Zetec

Diamondback Zetec

After graduating high school, I moved onto college at Purdue where I learned the real meaning of owning a bike. Getting to class in a lot less time than on foot. Every minute counted for much needed rest. I enjoyed riding around with my Diamondback Zetec.

After college… I had it all… a travelling full-time job, a girlfriend and an overweight frame to show how “happy” I was. For some reason, I didn’t feel fulfilled and so I ditched the first two (tried to get rid of the third) and found a new religion – amateur racing.

I was first introduced to racing by my friend Ted Ramos and I had the honor of riding with him on Team Get-A-Grip. He’s a great coach at Well-Fit and dear friend. This is where I did my first set of mountain bike and Xterra races. If you’ve never done an Xterra race you need to. Xterra racing consists of a small tight-knit community and you are so close to nature. Nothing beats adventure endurance racing when combined with swimming, mountain biking and trail running. I’ve had my ups and downs with endurance racing, especially from my first triathlon. As easy as a doing a triathlon sounds, getting towed in by boat mid-swim was definitely a reality check and game changer for me. At the end of the day it added fuel to the fire.

Xterra World Champion Conrad “The Caveman” Stoltz and I

Xterra World Champion Conrad “The Caveman” Stoltz and I

If you thought it couldn’t get better than that, enter the world of Chicago Cyclocross (CX). Better known as the ChiCrossCup. What better way to train during the off cycling season with fun races!? I found CX as a great way to find release and decompress from a long year of hard criterium racing and triathlons.

Jackson Park - Date: 2009

Jackson Park – Date: 2009

Indian Lakes - Date: 2010

Indian Lakes – Date: 2010

After a year or two of racing with Get-a-Grip I ended up rolling with Team Iron Cycles. Although these guys were way more hard core than I, hanging with this crew made me a better all around cyclist. Here, I ended up taking on more road races seriously, especially criteriums. Although I wasn’t big into travelling to races at the time; I’ve really enjoyed going to the Tour of Galena. It’s the trifecta of road races. You get the opportunity to race a time trial, road race and criterium all in one weekend and take in the views of a gorgeous town.
This also happened to be my first experience hanging with the Spidermonkeys.

Tour of Galena - Criterium - Date: 2012

Tour of Galena – Criterium – Date: 2012

I ended up rooming with Spidermonkeys like Sara Rice, Peter Monko and Hayes Sanborn. There was an air about their demeanor which was down to earth but when they brought their game into the race their performance was nothing short of epic.

After getting to know some of the Spidermonkey’s I knew this was a special crew. I had to join them. Not only because of their diverse membership, which consists of volunteers to racers. The Spidermonkeys magically checked all the boxes of what I was looking for in an cycling group:

✔ – Vision

✔ – Great leadership (Dean & Vanessa – You rock!)

✔ – Strong relationships with members

✔ – Support for social causes

✔ – Tight-knit cycling and social community (Never miss a group ride or outing)

✔ – Humor (Hey, it goes a long way)

✔ – Great partnerships

But what they most represent to me. An extended family – ✔

Goose Island Dock Party - Date: 2013

Goose Island Dock Party – Date: 2013

Spidermonkeys of the Week – Yvonne and Paul Tierney

Vegas 2013 with JT on the right

Vegas 2013 with JT

Hello Spidermonkeys,

We are the Tierney’s, Paul and Yvonne.  We are both from Galway, Ireland. We moved to Chicago for a year in February 1998 and have yet to go home.

We don’t have any cool bike stories like the rest of the SOTW, so we will fast forward to how and when we became Spidermonkeys.

We knew Dean through our gym, the YMCA.  We were also friends with the Bowens (Scott and Rox).  We did the MS ride with the Lakeview YMCA team back in 2010 along with Kyle, Scott and Rox.   The Bowens ditched us to ride with the Spidermonkeys, but I can’t say I blame them; we were on our commuter bikes after all.  That’s right; we did 75 miles on day 1 of the ride on our commuter bikes!!  Thank you I know that’s impressive.   I remember cursing every person that passed me on a road bike.  After that ride we realized we needed road bikes.   The very next day or week we paid a visit to Get a Grip, where Ken fitted us for two new Scott Road bikes.

MS Ride 2011

MS Ride 2011 with Roxanne

Before we continue the story, we need to remind you again that we have no experience whatsoever with riding or bikes or any of that stuff. …So now that we had these expensive bikes we needed to ride them.   We showed up to our first group ride at Element not knowing anyone except Dean.  Dean was kind enough to point out to the group that we made a horrible rookie mistake – our tires were flat!  Oops!  But aside from feeling completely embarrassed and stupid, we learned never take out the bikes without first putting air in the tires – So thank you Dean!

We did a few more group rides, the majority of them ended in pouring rain. We also did that North Shore Century that one year where it rained the whole time.  Paul did the whole ride with his bike shorts on backwards!!!   We were starting to feel like someone was trying to tell us something!   But with attending clinics at GAG, and listening to everything that people on the team told us along with the way, we were getting the hang of it.  Still PLENTY to learn but getting better with each ride.   Dean invited us as special guests to the end of year bash in 2011, and we officially joined the team in 2012.

We decided to go to spring training in Vegas in 2012 to get to know other team mates.  Again remember how little we know about riding, well we did the North Shore Century and didn’t ride again until Vegas.  We did it though and learned a ton.  I didn’t even know what a switch back was let alone ride my bike on one.   We had a blast.  Everyone on the team was so supportive, encouraging and helped us along the rides.   We decided to sign up for VQ to train in the off season.  We went to Vegas again this year and we surprised ourselves how much stronger we were.

Vegas 2012!

Vegas 2012!

We really are so happy to be a part of such a great team.    The great friends we have made and the new friends we make each and every time we get together with the Spidermonkeys.  This team is more than just a team; it’s like a big family.  We didn’t have any family in Chicago until we joined the Spidermonkeys. We can’t wait to ride in 2013!!

Caw caw

 

Spidermonkey of the Week – Hayes Sanborn

J-Pow! and Hayes!

My adventuring into cycling was winter of 1988, in a dark living room, sitting by the fire. I was a little boy growing up in Oklahoma and my dad was hatching a plan. We would ride bikes across the state of Iowa and spend the evenings in tents. I was of the age that spending a week in a tent sounded pretty damn cool, so I was in! This was going to be a father and son trip, as my parents were finalizing a divorce, one last adventure before I would move to Illinois with my mom and little brother. One problem, I didn’t really have a bike worthy of such an adventure. I had a single speed but nothing that would hold up for a week of cycling. Dad went to the city and picked up a new Trek and I would be use his old 1975 Sears ten speed with all original parts (and cables). IOW, the bike and I were of the same model year. Our training plan was easy, each weekend we rode from our house to a lake and back home. A spring of riding and we were off to Iowa for RAGBRAI XVII. The highlights were dove bars, pork chops, and my front derailleur cable snapping and riding an entire day in the big ring. I don’t remember the trip being too hard, we covered 479 miles + the bonus day to hit a century. According to the event site, it was dubbed the hardest of the courses at the time, no big deal. Here we are dipping our wheels into the Mississippi river as proof of our finish and proof I’ve always had chicken legs!

RAGBRAI XVII

That was it for cycling for me until I was working late one weekend afternoon and ended over by the lake to see the 2005 Chicago Triathlon. It seemed pretty cool, I swam through high school and had run a marathon a few years earlier. This seemed to be in my wheelhouse, I went online and bought a triathlon bike a 51cm Ironhorse and started training. I raced my first year on a bike that was crazy small for me and would get crushed on the bike portion of every race. In Miami, I was one of the top amateurs out of the water and listened to “Nice Swim Chicago” for 3hrs while I soft pedaled back to transition. I wisened up and was fitted by Adam at GetaGrip with new bike under me, the rest is history! I have countless triathlons under my belt with 3 Ironman finishes to my name. I’ve gotten into coaching with USAT and USAC and managed to make my girlfriend, Karin, faster than me. My goal for this season, stop getting chicked!

Kicking ass in triathlon!

I was friends with Geoff Scott via the Chicago Tri Club and somehow ended up in Jackson park for the Chicago Cross Cup in 2009. I watched a few races and thought this was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I was hooked, I was also completely burned out from a season of Ironman training. The fire was still burning and I showed up in Jackson park a year later to give it a go. I hung out all season with Geoff and Ken and would official join the Spidermonkeys after cross season ended. I just finished my first year with the team/club and love every second of it. You can find me at every cross race suffering like a dog and cowbelling for other Monkeys.

I’ll be around more this season, I’m adding some early road racing to my calendar before Triathlon season gets going and I plan to be a regular on the JJ Peppers ride. Cheap beer and trying to flog each other on the bike?!?! Sweet, I’m in.

So that’s my story and thanks for reading!

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