St. Louis, MO – U.S. National Criterium Champion John Murphy of the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis took 9th place in the bunch sprint of the first stage of the 2009 Tour of Missouri Monday.

The entire 7.5-mile circuit in St. Louis was lined with fans. The finishing area, in the heart of downtown, was six deep people getting a good look at the fast-moving peloton.

“We wanted to be attentive today, but also race intelligently,” said team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. “The sprint was pretty chaotic, with everyone fighting for wheels. Murphy did a good job.”

Bradley White of OUCH Presented by Maxxis waited until the final lap of the race to get in his first break of the week. White jumped off the front in the closing kilometers along with Shawn Milne (Team Type 1) in an attempt to upset the rhythm of the sprinters’ teams but at that late stage, they weren’t given too much leash.

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Oakland, CA – OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis riders Floyd Landis and Tim Johnson are contributing signed jerseys to help cycling photographer Jonathan Devich raise money as part of his MODogs raffle to benefit the Humane Society of Missouri.

This past July, federal authorities broke up the largest dog-fighting ring in U.S. history. The Humane Society of Missouri took in over 400 dogs rescued from the ring. Knowing he was going to be in Missouri for the Tour this week, Devich, who provides photography to OUCH Presented by Maxxis, set up a fundraising initiative called MODogs, through which he is raffling off cycling memorabilia related to this week’s Tour of Missouri. He is also donating proceeds from any prints he sells from shooting the Tour of Missouri. All money raised will go to the HSMO Animal Cruelty Fund.

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Oakland, CA – The OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis heads into the Tour of Missouri Monday with a balanced roster well suited to the hard, rolling course of the seven-day race.

“Missouri is definitely not a pure climber’s course,” said team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. “For the overall, it favors riders who can get over the climbs but also time trial well.”

For that reason, OUCH Presented by Maxxis has brought together a roster with both conventional overall contenders such as Rory Sutherland and Chris Baldwin, but also classics-style riders like Karl Menzies, Andrew Pinfold and U.S. criterium champion John Murphy, who could find themselves sprinting from breaks, or even contending for the overall title if a break sticks like it did in 2007, when 12 riders got off the front in Stage 2 and opened a gap of 16 minutes.

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Oakland, CA – The OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis has its full contingent of nine American riders in Greenville, S.C. for the U.S. Pro Cycling Championships this weekend.

For Saturday’s 33.4km time trial, the team will have four riders who have proven abilities against the clock. Headlining will be two-time U.S. Pro Time Trial Champion Chris Baldwin, who comes out of the Tour of Utah with great form despite some bad luck on the queen stage of the race.

Joining Baldwin will be Floyd Landis and Roman Kilun, who posted a top-10 result at last year’s U.S. Pro TT, and 2008 elite national time trial champion Jonathan Chodroff.

Baldwin and Landis will be top candidates for the hilly 177km road race on Sunday, along with Patrick McCarty, who posted a top-10 overall result at the Tour of Utah. Team captain Tim Johnson’s all-around strengths are also well suited for the 33.4km circuit that includes Paris Mountain.

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Elk Grove, IL – With only a final-stage criterium between Karl Menzies and the overall title of the Alexian Brothers Tour of Elk Grove, the task facing the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis seemed pretty straightforward. However, throw in the fact that the crit was over 110 km long with strong winds on the long finishing straight, and the fact that the team had done a significant amount of work Saturday to put Menzies in position to take the leader’s jersey, and the job was far from simple.

“It was a hard race,” team directeur Mike Tamayo said simply. “The guys worked really hard to hold Karl’s position. With the wind, the length of the crit and yesterday’s effort, the guys were a bit tired. But they did what they had to do to get Karl the win. It was a great team effort.”

In the end, Menzies’ two lead-out men, Andrew Pinfold and John Murphy, delivered the big Tasmanian safely to 11th in the final sprint, which was more than enough to secure his overall title.

“The boys were amazing again today,” Menzies said. “I think between yesterday and today, I spent maybe a couple minutes total with my nose in the wind. They made things easy on me.”

With time gaps tight within the top 25 overall coming into the crit, the team was going to have its work cut out for it. Early on, a group of nine riders got off the front and threatened Menzies’ lead.

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Stillwater, MN – Since the end of the opening stage time trial Wednesday morning, Rory Sutherland of the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis had been chasing race leader Tom Zirbel (Bissell), needing to close a gap of 0:13 to repeat as champion of the Nature Valley Grand Prix. Finally, in the closing minutes of the final stage Sunday, Sutherland caught and passed Zirbel to erase the last seven seconds of his deficit, and take the overall title of the six-stage race by a slim, three-second margin. And there was no way he would’ve done it without a full team effort propelling him.

“We put everything into one late attack,” Sutherland said. “We’ve had race plans and been trying to execute them all week and we just weren’t quite there. Today, everything went right. The guys rode great, executed well and I had the legs at the end.”

Sunday’s two-pronged plan was quite simple, and took advantage of the strength on OUCH Presented by Maxxis, and tried to replicate the scenario that played out at the end of Wednesday night’s St. Paul Criterium.

“When things got really fast and crazy near the end on Wednesday night,” explained team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo, “gaps started to form and Zirbel was caught out of position. That allowed Rory to make the front group and pick up those six seconds. We wanted to try to create the same situation again today and open some gaps to see if we could catch Zirbel out.”

But first, Tamayo said, they wanted to make Zirbel’s Bissell teammates work. “We sent the one guy on our team who has the capacity to ride away from guys on this course out on the attack,” he said.

That was Floyd Landis, who initiated an attack with 14 laps to go, that forced Bissell to ride a hard tempo at the front until reeling him back in with seven trips remaining around the notorious Stillwater circuit, which featured the painfully steep Chilkoot Hill at its end. For his efforts, Landis earned the day’s Most Aggressive Rider jersey.

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Hood River, OR – Chris Baldwin of the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented came into the final stage of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic Sunday needing to make up a 13-second gap to race leader Paul Mach (Bissell). But the tight, windy 1 km course provided little opportunity for the team’s newest member to escape and put time on Mach.

“It’s a bit frustrating not to capitalize on the small margin,” he said. Instead, Baldwin finished in the main pack and easily preserved 2nd place overall.

The day before, on the Wy’East Road Race, Hood’s queen stage, Baldwin was aggressive in trying to shake Mach to close down what was then a 15-second gap. Baldwin had help from teammate Roman Kilun in setting up attacks going into the final climb, but with the team’s third rider, Jonathan Chodroff, out of the race after being taken out in a crash, Baldwin was on the wrong end of a numbers game with Bissell. He put in several attacks near the end of the finishing climb trying to dislodge the young Bissell rider from his wheel. But at the stage’s end, he was unable to get away, settling for second place on the stage just ahead of Mach.

“They got a bit of time on me during the first road stage Thursday, and Mach was able to do a really strong time trial the next day,” Baldwin said. So strong that the two-time national time trial champion was only able to gain three seconds on the Bissell rider despite winning the stage. “On Saturday, all he had to do was follow my wheel. Give him credit. He rode a strong, smart race.”

Though he was frustrated with finishing 2nd, overall Baldwin was pleasantly surprised with how well the race went. He finished with one stage win, a 2nd place and a 3rd place, to go along with Chodroff’s 3rd place in the time trial.

“When I first talked to Mike (Tamayo, OUCH Presented by Maxxis directeur sportif), we looked at this race as more for training,” Baldwin said. “I didn’t know how I was going to feel with the new equipment. That’s a really personal thing. The first road stage was only the second ride I did on my new Kuota, and the first one was for about an hour the evening before. Some guys can get on a new bike and just go. I’m at the other end of the spectrum. I’ve very finicky.

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Oakland, CA – The OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis has added Chris Baldwin, a two-time U.S. National Time Trial Champion, to its roster for the remainder of the 2009 season.

“Chris has been one of North America’s top stage racers for this entire decade,” said team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. “He’s an excellent time trialist and one of the best climbers around. He adds tremendous depth to our stage race squad. He’s had some great rides already this year, and I think he’ll really excel with this organization.”

OUCH Presented by Maxxis team leader Rory Sutherland has battled against Baldwin for the past two years and is glad to now be riding along side him.

“Chris is a good guy and a great rider,” Sutherland said. “His talents compliment in areas where we need more help. Obviously he’s a great time trialist, and he’s probably a better climber than I am, especially at altitude. He’s going to be a huge asset for us at races like Hood and Utah.”

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Fayetteville, AR – Rory Sutherland of the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis came into the challenging final Stage criterium of the Joe Martin Stage Race with a nine-second lead over Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell). It was the same margin he held following Stage 2, thanks to the work of his teammates during a hectic Stage 3 on Saturday.

“The guys pulled it together and did their jobs again today,” Sutherland said. “The were on the front from the get-go. They’d let little groups go, but kept everything under control.”

For the second consecutive day, Bissell threw repeated attacks at Sutherland and his OUCH Pres ented by Maxxis teammates. “We did what we’ve done here the last two years,” said Sutherland, who finished 7th in the final stage. “The other teams threw down again like yesterday, but the guys weathered it.”

While Sutherland won last year’s opening prologue and then held on for the three road stages, this year he finished 2nd by one second to Jacques-Maynes in the prologue. But he showed his versatility by taking 2nd in the sprint finish in Stage 2 to earn a 10-second time bonus and a nine-second lead in the general classification, which he and his teammates held to the end.

“It’s a big win for the team and a big win for the organization,” he added.

The win, in fact, is the fifth consecutive overall victory of Joe Martin for the organization.

Fayetteville, AR – Rory Sutherland of the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis was unsure of his form going into this year’s edition of the Joe Martin Stage Race, a race he’s won the past two years.

“A three-peat is a big call,” he said before the race. “It would be nice, don’t get me wrong, and it seems like I’m getting better every tour, but like a diesel.”

His form may be a little better than he thinks, if his 2nd place finish yesterday afternoon in the 2.5-mile uphill prologue of Joe Martin is any indication. And it was a close second, in fact by just over a second, to Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell). Sutherland powered his Kuota up the course in a time of 9:42.03.

OUCH Presented by Maxxis had a strong showing overall in the prologue, placing five riders in the top 18, none more than 30 seconds behind Jacques-Maynes, and two more riders within 42 seconds.

“It gives us a lot of options,” team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo said. “We intend to make Bissell’s life difficult.”

With plenty of time bonuses out on the road and at stage finishes, Sutherland will have a number of opportunities to take over the race lead. He can start today, with a hilly 179km road race that offers a 15-second time bonus to the winner. Sutherland took 2nd on this stage – and a 10-second time bonus – last year to extend the lead he earned in the prologue.