Tejay van Garderen of BMC has won the third stage of the US Pro Tour Challenge
A 155km stage from Gunnison to Monarch Mountain Ski Resort saw Alex Howes (Garmin-Sharp) as the leader going into a stage which saw the peloton altogether until Janier Acevedo attacked with 54kms gone.
The rider from Garmin Sharp who will be merging with Cannondale, soon has a 15 second lead and extended that to a fifty second lead, staying away until he was caught by Tejay van Garderen and Ben Hermans (BMC), Tom Danielson (Garmin Sharp), Rafal Majka, Michael Rogers and Pawel Poljanski (Tinkoff-Saxo), Carter Jones (Optum).with 92kms to go.
Ben Hermans took the first climb of the day ahead of Danielson as the escapers saw their lead drop down to 35 seconds thanks to some good work from Franck Schleck and Jens Voigt, heading through Salida.
There was just over fifty kilometres when Michael Rogers went off on his own and took a lead of 1.10 and the first sprint.
Rogers had a lead of 1.35 on his chaser and 3.15 on the peloton as he started on the climb up Monarch Mountain.with fifteen miles to go.
Rogers was eventually caught with eight kilometres left by the fifteen strong chasing group and the attacks started with Acevedo and Jaramillo on the front.
Carter Jones tried to attack but Danielson followed him on the road up to the Ski Resort which stands at over 10,000 feet.
Danielson tried to string the riders out witrh 4.9kms left and two kilometres later, Matty Busche of Trek Factory Racing decided to chance his arm and quickly became the virtual leader on the road.
However, he caufght before the flam rouge and Tejay van Garderen and Rafal Majka. The American led all the way and took the win in 3.50.41 ahead of Majka and the leader's jersey after Alex Howes came in 1.57 down.
Sergei Tvetcov was third with Hermans fourth, Danielson fifth and Jones sixth.
van Garderen now leads the race by twenty seconds from Majka and 23 seconds from Hermans.