Alex Howes was agonizingly close to his first pro win when he was narrowly beaten by close friend Kiel Reijnen in a two-rider sprint. The American was frustrated to have missed a great chance but was pleased to see his training partner take the biggest career victory.

For a couple of years, Alex Howes has shown great potential but so far it has not paid off with a pro win. However, it seems that his participation in the recent Tour de France has made him even stronger and yesterday he got close to that elusive victory in the first stage of the USA Pro Challange.

At the end of a surprisingly hard race, Howes escaped with teammate Kiel Reijnen and the pair managed to stay away until the finish. In the end, he was narrowly beaten and had to settle for second.

“I train with Kiel pretty much every day,” said Howes. “I knew he’d be a good rider today. Honestly I had questions about myself, pretty much full-on since spring. It’s been a long season. To be honest, mentally, I’m losing it. Physically it’s in there, it just takes a bit of digging. When I looked back and saw Kiel there, I figured it was 50/50; when we’re training and sprint against each other, that’s how it usually comes out.

"At no point in time today did I think of giving it to him. But Kiel's one of my best friends and he deserved it. He owes me a coffee, but I'm disappointed. I came here with Tommy [Danielson] for the GC, and I believe in him 100 percent. But I got a very, very rare free card today and I tried to make the most of it.

“BMC had a lot of cards to play there. They were kind of messing around to put a little pressure on us. We were in a fortunate position where we could kind of hang back. … That’s racing. Sometimes you bluff, sometimes it punches you in the face, and sometimes it works out.