USA Pro Challenge: Van Garderen triumphs on Monarch Mountain

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Tejay van Garderen (BMC) regained his status of leader of his hometown race, the USA Pro Challenge, with a vicious attack in the final kilometer of the summit finish at Monarch Mountain. The American surged away from the elite leading group, taking only Tour de France rival Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) along for the ride. The Polish rider could not respond in the sprint and settled for second, and moved into second overall.

Serghei Tvetcov (Jelly Belly) was third on the stage, and moved up into fifth overall.

"The team rode incredibly again," van Garderen said after his victory. "It was a little bit confusing out there, Garmin had the jersey but didn't want to control the race. They wanted to ride aggressively and keep jumping, so it made for confusing tactics. To simplify it we put our team on the front to neutralize things, and to keep it under control. After the team rode all day yesterday and today, I think it's awesome that I was able to pay them back with the stage win and the jersey."

The race's former leader Alex Howes (Garmin Sharp) was dislodged by the attacks of his team on the 10-mile long finishing climb, and by the finish was dropped for nearly two minutes, but despite his teammate Tom Danielson's constant attacks, he could not get rid of van Garderen.

The BMC captain bided his time, watching Danielson like a cat playing with his dinner, then when the final turn was almost in sight put in one vicious attack straight to the jugular.

"With all due respect to Danielson, I think he got nervous," van Garderen said. "He wanted to attack on his own, but didn't want to commit to an attack. Every time he saw I was on his wheel he sat up, and then tried again. At the same time, he didn't want anyone else to go up the road, so he covered those, too. I sensed he was nervous, that he'd wear himself out, and all I needed was one solid move, and that was all it took."

Danielson defended the tactics, telling Cyclingnews, "We made a plan to race to super aggressively, and it didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to.

"We wanted to force them to ride to use their guys, but it turned out a little disappointing. I don't have the same acceleration that Tejay has. I didn't want it to come down to that. I didn't want it to come down to 1km, that's why I was attacking so much at the bottom, but there was so much headwind and it's not a steep climb, so that's all I can say."

Unfortunately for Danielson, he could not distance BMC's Ben Hermans on the final stretch. The two came in fourth and fifth, respectively, and are third and fourth on GC now, more than half a minute behind van Garderen.

Tvetcov, formerly licensed in Moldova but now with Romania for better Olympic selection opportunities, was pleased with his performance to take third on the day.

"It was a great ride. The climb suited me because it's not steep and it was kind of a headwind. Everyone attacked, and I just waited. It was a steady tempo, not up and down. With 1km to go Tejay jumped with Rafal Majka, but it was too fast for me. Carter Jones went, and I sat on his wheel. When he slowed down, I went my own tempo."

How it unfolded

Just like in the previous day's stage, the field appeared hesitant to let anyone get away early. Several groups tried to forge a breakaway, but none were successful until the road started tilting upward about 50km into the 155km stage.

Garmin-Sharp's Janier Acevedo attacked out of the compact field at the bottom of the first climb up and over Monarch Pass, and the Colombian rider opened up a small gap as the field began to splinter behind him. A select group of about 15 riders, which included race leader Alex Howes (Gamrin-Sharp), and last year's winner Tejay van Garderen and all of the favorites for the general classification, began to form behind.

Several riders dropped out of the first chase, while others clawed their way back. The attacking and countering eventually helped bring Acevedo back, and as the leaders neared the first KOM of the day, a lead group of eight took control at the front. The group included van Garderen and his BMC teammate Ben Hermans, Tom Danielson and Acevedo of Garmin, Rafal Majka, Michael Rogers and Pawel Poljanski of Tinkoff Saxo and Optum Pro Cycling's Carter Jones.

A group of 14 riders that included Howes chased behind as the leaders reached the KOM, where Hermans took maximum points ahead of Danielson. Acevedo went to the front on the descent to set the pace for Danielson, hoping to distance the other GC riders who didn't make the front group.

But the descent into Salida allowed the chasers to eventually regain contact on the first of two 14km circuits in town. Trek drove the pace hard to make the catch, and Rogers attacked as they closed in. The Tinkoff rider opened up a gap of more than a minute with about 45km remaining to race and another ascent up Monarch Mountain.

Jamis-Hagens Berman's Daniel Jaramillo joined UnitedHealthcare's Lucas Euser in an attack out of the first chase group on the second Salida circuit, and the pair set off in search of the lone leader. But a concerted chase from BMC quickly brought Euser and Jaramillo back into the group, leaving only Rogers alone up the road.

Rogers maintained a gap of 1:30 with just 20km remaining, but it was down to just over a minute 6km later. The chasers made the catch with less than 10km to go, and Acevedo launched another attack. The climbing specialist surged away from the front group for a brief foray off the front. The lead group brought him back quickly, but Acevedo stayed on the front to set the pace. Howes fell out of the group at this point, followed by Brent Bookwalter.

Inside of 5km, Tinkoff's Bruno Pires attacked the select front group to no avail, followed by accelerations from Danielson and then Jones, whose attack whittled the lead group down to approximately 15 riders that included all the top GC contenders.

The group allowed Busche to roll off the front inside 3km to go, and the Trek rider opened up a gap of about 10 seconds with 2.5km to go. The Tinkoff riders in the group, Pires and Poljanski, led the chase, which slowly reeled Busche back.

"I don't think there was anything different I could have done," Busche told Cyclingnews. "I basically went all in, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. At least I tried. I think I might still be up there on GC, so I'm happy that I tried but a little disappointed that I probably lost something in the end. I guess it's better to go down fighting than to go down without trying."

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