Surprisingly, Alex Howes was the only rider that could follow Tejay van Garderen in yesterday's mountain stage of the USA Pro Challenge and the great performance allowed him to take the leader's jersey. However, it doesn't change his position in the team and tomorrow he will again be working for Tom Danielson.

Garmin-Sharp went into the USA Pro Challenge with the plan to support Tour of Utah winner Tom Danielson but until now Alex Howes has been their strongest rider. Having finished second in the opening stage, he was the only rider that could follow Tejay van Garderen in the first mountain stage and another runner-up spot allowed him to take the overall lead.

With a time trial coming up, however, Howes knows that he has no chance in the final GC and so he will be riding as a domestique in today's queen stage.

"The neutralisation made for a funny run in," Howes said. "It was really disorganised, and even when we were riding flat out, we were talking amongst ourselves, 'are we doing this? Are we racing or not racing? Tejay hit out under one kilometer to go, and I followed his wheel, and I looked down and thought, 'the legs are doing it, this is going to work out'

"We're riding for Tom Danielson tomorrow up Monarch. Basically the only thing that changes is I'll be in yellow in front of Tom, hopefully on the later stages of Monarch. I have no hopes and dreams of crushing the Vail time trial, since I can't time trial my way out of a wet paper bag. They'll do their thing tomorrow, and hopefully I will pass this onto Tommy D."