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• 1. Tom Zirbel Bissell Pro Cycling Team 1127 points
• 2. Sebastion Haedo Colavita Olive Oil/sutter Home Pro 1120 points
• 3. Rory Sutherland Ouch P/b Maxxis 952 points
• 4. Karl Menzies Ouch P/b Maxxis 660 points
• 5. Alejandro Borrajo Colavita Olive Oil/sutter Home Pro 565 points

Yes! I’m back in writing mode! This road season has been amazingly busy but still so much fun. It’s like getting the boys back together. When you have a good group of doods and you’re traveling around racing your bike it’s pretty hard to buckle down to write it all out in a journal. Now I’m gonna attempt to re-tell the awesomeness in one article.

Press Release

With both trade show season and cyclocross season just around the corner, the cycling industry is gearing up for what feels like an unprecedented onslaught of new products and technological developments. Here are just a few that we’re keeping tabs on, based on press releases pouring in the door. Look for more in the days to come, as we cover the Eurobike and Interbike trade shows, plus product intros from companies large and small.

Van Dessel updates Gin and Trombones cyclocross bikes

Perhaps it’s no mistake that Greg Henderson’s biggest road win of his career comes in the Vuelta a España. Monday’s stage-3 sprint victory for the 32-year-old Henderson caps a breakthrough season that’s also included major victories on Spanish roads, at the Clásica de Almería, the Vuelta a Murcia and the Volta a Catalunya. Holland isn’t quite Spain, but it is still the Vuelta a España despite its popular start in Benelux.

Earlier this month USA Cycling announced its picks for the 2009 UCI mountain bike world championships, starting Tuesday in Canberra, Australia. A quick look at the list of elite cross-country riders reveals the usual heavy hitters of America off-road racing: Mary McConneloug, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski and Adam Craig, to name a few. There’s also the name Judy Freeman.

Boise could be written off as a pretty average city, but the mountain bike trail network just at the edge of town defies expectation.

Planet Energy’s Keven Lacombe emerged from a stacked field of sprinters to win Sunday’s Chris Thater Memorial, coming to the line ahead of Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita-Sutter Home) and Yosvany Falcon (Champion Porsche). In Saturday's women's race, Team Tibco's Brooke Miller outsprinted Theresa Cliff_rayn (Verducci) and Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) for the win. The race was both a National Racing Calendar event and a round of the USA Crits series.

New Zealander Greg Henderson (Columbia-HTC) sprinted to his first grand-tour victory on Monday in stage 3 of the 2009 Vuelta a España. The former track racer proved the fastest in a furious finale, crossing ahead of Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil) and Oscar Freire (Rabobank). Going into the final tricky corner, Henderson had a couple of Quick Steps in front of him and teammate André Greipel on his wheel. The idea was to launch the big German to the line. But things didn't work out as planned.

POM Wonderful, the largest U.S. grower of Wonderful variety pomegranates and maker of 100% pomegranate juice, today announced its sponsorship of Team Garmin-Slipstream, the American professional cycling team dedicated to ethical sporting and developing the next generation of cycling champions. The announcement comes on the heels of the team's outstanding Tour de France performance, where it was second overall with riders Bradley Wiggins and Christian Vande Velde finishing in the top ten, and at the start of the Vuelta, its third Grand Tour of the season.

With a World Cup victory and two Pro XCT wins, August was good to Geoff Kabush. The Canadian is hoping September continues that good form going into the World Championships in Canberra, Australia next weekend.

George Hincapie (Columbia-HTC) rode through a wall of sound as he outsprinted Andrew Bajadali (Kelly Benefit Strategies) to win the road race Sunday at the USA Cycling Professional National Championships in his adopted hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. The pair overtook Jeff Louder (BMC Racing Team), who attacked an elite group of seven riders in the final lap of the 185km race, which featured four trips over Paris Mountain.

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Chris Horner cannot wait to get to the warmer climes of Spain. It’s not that the Astana captain doesn’t like bumping shoulders on the narrow, rainy roads of Holland, but he knows that the real battle won’t begin until the Vuelta a España transfers down to the Iberian peninsula next week. In the meantime, it’s about gritting the teeth and avoiding a costly mishap.

Gerald Ciolek (Milram) has been lurking on the edge of greatness ever since he came out of nowhere to beat Erik Zabel and claim the 2005 German national title as a 20-year-old neo-pro. After winning the 2006 U23 world title, Ciolek has patiently been collecting minor wins and close calls in bigger events. He finally got his just reward in Sunday’s second stage of the 2009 Vuelta a España, a pan-flat 203.7km ride from Assen to Emmen in the Netherlands.

Danny Pate (Garmin-Slipstream) has a long-standing relationship with the top of the results sheet at the USA Cycling Professional National Championships in Greenville, South Carolina. Pate has finished top-five in the road race every year since the event moved from Philadelphia to Greenville in 2006. A former U23 world time trial champion, Pate has skipped the time trial each of the last two seasons to focus solely on the road race at nationals and hopes to break through to the top step of the podium Sunday.