Tejay van Garderen (BMC) won Friday's individual time trial at the Amgen Tour of California to increase his lead with two days of the race to go.

Van Garderen stomped up the final climb to beat Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM Procycling Team) by 22 seconds and third-place finisher Rohan Dennis by 28 seconds in the 32km race against the clock. In the overall standings, van Garderen is 1’47” ahead of Michael Rogers (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) and 2’57” ahead of third-placed Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEDGE).

"I didn't know how I was doing because my radio wasn't working - but it didn't matter because I was on the gas the whole way," van Garderen said. "There was really no place that you could hold back. It started straight away up a climb and then there was ripping headwind on that flat section, so you really had to dig deep there. Of course, the climb up to the finish was hard."

Van Garderen said he received inspiration from several family members who awaited him at the finish.

"Having my wife and my new daughter and my mother-in-law here definitely gave me some extra motivation," he said. "It was incredible. I couldn't have asked for a better day."