Van Garderen powered his BMC timemachine TM01 across the finish of the 16.1km race to stop the clock at 25:01 and better the record of 25:47 established two years ago on the course that was often used in another major Colorado race, the Red Zinger (1975-79 and Coors Classic (1980-88).

"It was certainly a hard effort. I don't even know how to describe it," van Garderen said. "Your lungs are searing up there in that thin air. Van Garderen said he was actually surprised to hear he had won the stage – his second in the race that has previously seen him finish third overall in 2011 and runner-up last year. "You could see on TV that my cadence dropped and I kind of died there in the last two kilometres," he said. "I was still paying for my effort in the beginning, which I thought was conservative." After leading by 32 seconds at the intermediate time check, Van Garderen's winning margin was four seconds over Garmin-Sharp's Andrew Talansky and 62 seconds better than Talansky's teammate, Tom Danielson. BMC Racing Team's Steve Cummings and Larry Warbasse finished fourth and fifth respectively, 1:04 and 1:12 back, while a fourth BMC Racing Team rider, Mathias Frank, remained second overall by finishing 10th, 1:26 behind.

Frank Remains Second Overall
With two days of the race to go, van Garderen leads teammate Frank by 1’30”. Danielson is third, a further 12 seconds back. Frank said he tried not to "blow up" and just ride a good rhythm on a tough course he said was made harder by the altitude.

"Tejay was just riding on a different level, in a different universe, he was super strong," Frank said. "It was really cool to see how the team performed. It was just amazing." Frank said his performance is surprising even himself. "I am still struggling with altitude, like everybody does here," he said. "I am not feeling super, but apparently I'm going well. If you don't feel good and you're still second on the GC, that's nice."

BMC Racing Team Assistant Director Jackson Stewart said he isn't too concerned that the effort van Garderen, Cummings, Warbasse and Frank – who won stage 2 on Tuesday – put out Friday will come back to haunt them. "The great thing about this race is that we really positioned ourselves to where we didn't have to do any work too early," he said. "We have two more stages to work. I think we're in fine shape."