As I pulled into line on the back of our breakaway, the “TGV - Z” (above) whooshed by! On the flat roads from Paris to Tours, I witnessed something, someone, almost as streamlined and powerful as the high speed French TGV trains, flying with velocity and determination to get to the finish line.

Everyone knows how fast the TGV is just as everyone knows how fast Dave Zabriskie is when he puts on a skin suit. He started the 2008 Paris-Tours in a skin suit not as a joke but to give him a similar advantage the TGV has over every other ordinary train. By combining that with his Zipp 1080’s and a lowered front end on his Felt F1, Dave knew little was going to get in his way. He set out last Sunday to do damage to the pro peloton and that is exactly what be did.

There were five men in our breakaway, but with Dave riding like a man possessed it felt like eight. He heroically bridged to our four-man group by himself after we already had four minutes. When he got there, it was all business. Dave sacrificed himself on the front of the break all day, and with his monster efforts, brought our lead to almost twelve minutes. He put fear into one of the most fine tuned classics peloton there is.

This made the field chase harder than they would have if it had just been us four, creating a positive situation for Tyler and Steve, our shared team leaders for the day. We had put ourselves ahead of the game as Garmin is best known for. It was a long day, nearly 230 km off the front. But as the final showed, it helped Tyler to ride in a good position all day and conserve as much as he could for the end. Our team was never forced to chase and could focus on protecting Steve and Tyler. With just a bit more luck Tyler would have won that race.

Next year Dave and I will be up to the same antics, but from behind it will be Tyler on the back of the Garmin Express! I guarantee it right now. He will be winning big races! Now it’s on to the mountains for the rest of us boys, somewhere most of us feel much more comfortable.

Although I can’t guarantee another skin suit, we will no doubt be up to no good trying to spoil the home town advantage of all those Italian boys! We won’t disappoint!

Hi, I am an 8th grade English teacher at Carmen Arace Middle School in Bloomfield, CT. Our student population is predominantly African-American and many are avid sports fans and athletes. Additionally, they are brilliant and very creative.

Out team decided that our hallway should have a theme. We chose sports and games. The art teacher has been working with the students to turn the whole hallway into a game board called “The Game of Life.” The kids have to go through obstacles to successfully complete the game.

Outside my room my students and I decided that the essential concept that we should think about is the following: “Individuals Can and Do Prevail in the Face of Adversity. Can You?” Adversity is a conflict that my students encounter in their lives every day. To better understand the issue, we have chosen to look at it in terms of pro-cycling. We have created a collage of entries that feature pro-cycling; and specifically Garmin-Chipotle pb H30 and Christian Vande Velde.

My students and I discussed the issue from the perspective of pro cycling. I explained to them that Garmin-Chipotle pb H30 is a new team founded on the premise of racing hard and racing clean. They are now complete and total argyle fans. It was their idea to create the banner, collages and signs to complement our theme.

I hope you enjoy seeing the kids in action as much as they enjoyed working on this project and discussing the issue of adversity. We look forward to Spring, 2009, and a new season to begin so that we can follow all of our favorite Garmin-Chipotle riders. The girls feel a lot of empathy for Blake! And, for some reason the boys all think DZ is cool (which he is.)

“I talked with Jason who is on a layover at DFW from Chihuhua City to Denver. It sounds like a “hip fracture” that will be painful and annoying, but ultimately not a big deal. At this point he’s getting around with crutches and minimal pain. It doesn’t sound at all like the “hip fracture” grandma gets which almost always requires surgery, insertion of hardware, and extensive rehabilitation. I have a call now in to Dr. Stephan Paul at Boulder Orthopedics to see Jason in the next day or two. Details to follow.”

Standing on the side of the road in Branson for the time trial, I got to see the racers going both down the hill at lightening speeds and then climb back up. While speed is intoxicating and gets all the glory, the pace at which they climbed I found to be even more exciting.

The focus of the racers going up the hill was truly inspiring and the chance to get literally within inches of them to take a photo all whilst they are grinding out tons of wattage was better than Christmas. And like Christmas, now that the Tour of Missouri is over, the post holiday depression has set in. The countdown is on until next year.

Race report from DS Johnny Weltz

Everything today was pretty good until 4 km to go when Jason went down pretty hard. He managed to finish the race, but we had to go for x-rays of his hip. After talking a bit with the chief commissaire, they gave him the same time as the bunch. So he got to keep his 8th place on GC.

The rest stayed the same. Pat took the mountains jersey, Tom won the Best Young Rider classification, we had two riders in the top ten overall and the team finished 4th overall.

All in all, a great week for us here in Chihuahua!

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O Stage Results
1. Javier Benitez Pomares 1h55′17″
16. Christophe Laurent +02″
18. Tom Peterson +02″
56. Caleb Fairly +02″
62. Pat McCarty +12″
94. Jason Donald +2′02″

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O GC
1. Francisco Mancebo 21h14′12″
4. Tom Peterson +2′02″
8. Jason Donald +2′40″
22. Pat McCarty +6′49″
26. Christophe Laurent +11′13″
83. Caleb Fairly +1h05′27″

Mountains Classification
1. Pat McCarty 47 pts
2. Byron Guama 33 pts
3. David Vaz 30 pts

Best Young Classification
1. Tom Peterson
2. Javier Etxarri
3. Sergio Dominguez

Today at Paris-Tours we witnessed two very special things. One, Tyler Farrar (right) showed he is ready to step up to the top line of world sprinters. And then, we had the first man to race Paris-Tours in a skin suit?! Who else but our TT specialist, Captain America Dave Z (lower left).

Tyler has shown in years past and this year with us that he is a very capable sprinter. He has had a stellar summer and has kept the ball rolling all the way to the end. But winning the bunch sprint for 5th place a mere fours seconds back, and in front of the cream of the sprinting fraternity, shows he has made the made the next big step. Paris-Tours is a real classic and not any old euro race! He should go into the winter break with a lot of confidence in his future.

From the start today, the team rode as planned with Lucas riding super to make the first break that stuck. They had a 4-minute gap when the skinned-suited up Dave Z made his move. Not an orthodox move, but hey it’s Z! After Z bridged, the 5 riders went out to 11 minutes and spent 200-plus kilometers away !

The other boys did all they could for Tyler all day! Very, very solid performance.

Though the top four places today in Paris-Tours went to a late breakaway that held off the swarming peloton, Tyler Farrar won the bigger battle. Powered by The Argyle, Tyler took the field sprint and finished 5th in front of top sprinters McEwen, Zabel, Bennati and Boonen.

“The guys really turned themselves inside out for me today,” said Tyler. “And considering that this was the first Paris-Tours for all of them, they really were fantastic.”

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O animated today’s 252-kilometer race from the start. Just 7 km into the race, Lucas Euser (right) and three others broke away and quickly built up a gap. Thirty kilometers in to the race, David Zabriskie attacked and joined the Euser group. The break of five built their gap up to more than 11 minutes before the peloton started to react. With 25 km to go in the race, the peloton caught the five escapees. Shortly after that, the decisive break of four went.

As the peloton cranked up the chase in the final kilometers, the Argyle Armada rallied around Tyler to make sure he was in position when the race hit the famous Avenue de Grammont. Unfortunately, the breakaway had just enough of a gap when the race hit the final meters that they won with a four-second gap on the main field.

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O Results
1. Philippe Gilbert 5h47′33″
5. Tyler Farrar +04″
69. Steven Cozza +1′43″
83. Tom Danielson +1′43″
115. Christian Meier +1′43″
127. Mike Friedman +1′43″
147. Lucas Euser +2′58″
160. David Zabriskie +7′15″
166. Martijn Maaskant +7′25″

Christophe Laurent (above) was in the main breakaway all day. The group held their lead all the way to the finish in Chihuahua and Christophe finished 7th on the stage. The Mexican national champion won the stage and the GC stayed the same.

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O still has two riders in the top 10 overall along with the Best Young and Mountains leaders’ jerseys. Not bad for our small crew!

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O Stage Results
1. Luis Fernando Macias Hernandez 2h34′23″
7. Christophe Laurent +00″
20. Tom Peterson +34″
22. Jason Donald +34″
29. Caleb Fairly +34″
53. Pat McCarty +34″

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O GC
1. Francisco Mancebo 19h18′53″
4. Tom Peterson +2′02″
8. Jason Donald +2′40″
23. Pat McCarty +6′39″
26. Christophe Laurent +11′13″
84. Caleb Fairly +1h05′27″

Mountains Classification
1. Pat McCarty 47 pts
2. Byron Guama 33 pts
3. David Vaz 30 pts

Best Young Classification
1. Tom Peterson
2. Javier Etxarri
3. Sergio Dominguez

From the article: “Tyler Farrar, who held the race leader’s jersey at Franco-Belge last week, will be looking to capitalize on his strong late-season strength for Garmin-Chipotle.”

The time trial Thursday was good and bad. Bad first. Pat (right in pink KOM jersey) started to have stomach trouble in the morning, and unfortunately, it got worse as he raced. He was still able to move up in GC even after a bad morning. Tom didn’t have the legs he was hoping for, but neither did half the race as the course was demanding. So, ultimately, his ride was better than expected. I had a good day - felt good in the warm up and was relaxed enough to hold my position on GC. All in all - even after gazing incredulously at a couple of heinous truck wrecks in the canyon - it was a good showing.

Yesterday we started out well enough. Pat had a rough night and wasn’t able to keep any nutrients down, so he suffered a bit in the first 30 km with all the attacks. I covered the most dangerous guy for him on the only real mountain top (pictured above right). Then after that we settled in for a day in the group.

It was the last day for the real mountains. And though we missed the inspirational beauty that we’d seen in the time trial and the third stage, the benefit of getting out of the mountains was that we were back on smooth roads. This race is known for rough roads and you don’t realize how bad they are till you get back on some normal pavement!

Yesterday’s stage ended well. I moved up to 8th on GC because one of the American Beef riders who was ahead of me on GC just sat up for no reason in the last 5 km. The roads are better, the food has improved, we hold two out of the four jerseys and it’s all downhill - literally - to Chihuahua. We are happy campers! Thanks for reading.