Jason Snovel, Berkeley TTT, 4 Man

I always loved watching the TTT's in the Tour. It was always one of the most enjoyable stages to watch for me. The strength, the power, the speed, the whole team moving as one, in perfect unison, floating inches from each other, a sneeze away from disaster. Beautiful. Now, after having competed with 3 of my fellow compadres in my first ever...there's no feeling like it man!

Alarm went off at 4:45. I jump out of bed to turn it off so fast I don't even think I gave it a chance to reach it's full "I want to rip it out of the wall and pound it with a sledge hammer" potential. So amped about the event was I that before I know it, I'm out of the shower and in the garage for the last once over on the bike.

Fast forward to 15 min. to our 8:19 start. "Go ahead, I'm right behind you," I tell Darin, Rod and Mark. Throw on the helmet, grab the gloves, one last swig, and head out. About a mile from the parking lot I pass a rider heading the other way cussing and trying to click in...I ask if he's ok, he hollers something about my teammates, "Cool, thanks man!" I reply, thinking he was telling me that they're just ahead of me. Rounding the next turn I come upon the guys helping Mark dust off and checking his bike out. I look to Mark, who's by that time full into the ever dreadful "Ouwee Dance." "WTF!?!" I ask. His jersey's ripped, his elbow's bloody and we haven't even make it to the flippin' start line. Turns out the guy had just collided with Mark. I didn't see the accident but from what I was told, the guy was flying, tucked with his head down, and without warning, ran right smack into the back of Mark who was pulling off the road to check his bike. Mark took the brunt of the "attack" in the "left rear quadrant"...arrow bars! OUCH! El Toro strikes. It would be unanimously voted later that Mark's new nickname is "The Matador!" Mark felt pretty bad about it even though he wasn't the one at fault. I guess the other rider fared much worse and was screaming at Mark. Maybe it was a good thing I wasn't there. Give the once over on the bike, everything seems strait, without a word, Mark jumps on and leads the way to the start line.

"10 seconds!" "5-4-3-2-1-GO!" and we're off. I take the first pull. Perfect weather, great warm up, feeling good as we serpentine our way down the course. Working surprisingly well as a group for not having ever ridden together, staying tight, taking turns, beautiful. We fly into the first right hand turn. A truck burns passed us, the flagger waves him through, he stops, the flagger then tries to stop him, he lurches, we slam on the brakes. SH*T! I let out an expletive, Darin reels my emotions back in, and we press on. First big climb, we settle into a silent rhythm. I'm just starting to hum Promontory from the last of the Mohican's (it just works for me) as we level out, regain speed and hit the next climb. Pushing my 25 I say, "Thats all, no more gears!" Just then, Darin drops his chain. We slow, not sure whether to continue or wait. Looking back, hearing the seconds tick off, seeing Darin struggle, we look at each other and just as we start to head back, Darin gritting his teeth yells, "Go ahead guys, GO!" I can't imagine how tough that must have been for him. Feeling like hounds on a leash...we release.

Over the hills and through the woods, we reel in team in front of us...we surge. The final stretch, laying it all out diggin' deep, done.

High fives, back slappin', a few minutes later, Darin rolls in grinning from ear to ear like the rest of us. He hammered out the rest of the race solo just in case one of us had a mechanical. Way to go Darin. I think the "Toughest rider" award will have to be shared by both Darin and The Matador, who HTFU'd and pulled his share through the pain. You both rocked! And Rod, you hammered brutha!

The best part, throwing back a few with Rod, Darin, Dawn and the Matador over a perfect Chicago style pizza pie and Zachary's, exchanging stories and complimenting each other, laughing so hard that my abs cramped up. I tell ya, every time I race with this team, I come away saying, "What a great group of guys man!" Any time, any place...I'm in.

Dawn was the perfect TTT sherpa, helping with all of our #'s and just being there. She was also able to snap a few shots of all of the other DBCers out there, as well as a few great shots of Levi, who started about 20 min. after us and was still unable to reel us in! :0) As soon as I can, I'll upload them onto the web site. I'll let you know when I do.

Not sure what our time was, i think it was "Officially" around 49 and some change. 17th out of 24 I think. I think there were around 16 pro teams out there though. :0) ~ J