Tejay van Garderen

He won a stage of the Tour de l'Avenir and finished 24th in the under-23 race at the UCI Road World Championships in Varese, Italy.

Van Garderen joined the following year.

Van Garderen supported leader Michael Rogers over the 6th and 8th stages of the Tour of California; he finished 28th overall and Rogers won.

Van Garderen started the Critérium du Dauphiné as joint leader of with Kanstantsin Sivtsov and Peter Velits.

After nearly upsetting Alberto Contador in the prologue, he came 4th in the Stage 3 time trial to move to 2nd overall.

He lost time on mountain stages and finished 3rd.

Van Garderen rode a strong Vuelta a España with having a very strong first 2 weeks of the race.

His level of performance dropped after that but was still a valuable domestique to Velits, who went on to third place overall in the race.

He would finish in 82nd place.

At the Tour of Utah, Van Garderen won the third stage time trial.

After was disbanded, Van Garderen joined along with his team-mate Marco Pinotti.

Van Garderen won the young rider's jersey at Paris–Nice in early March, having held the jersey for the entire race.

Van Garderen was selected for the Tour de France as one of the main domestiques for defending champion Cadel Evans.

He enjoyed a strong first week, coming fourth in the prologue and wearing the white jersey – for the best-placed rider aged 25 or under in the general classification – until stage 7, where he lost time on the first summit finish of the Tour.

He regained the jersey with fourth place on Stage 9, an individual time trial.

On Stage 11, Van Garderen attempted to help Evans in an unsuccessful long range attack by breaking away from the yellow jersey group minutes before his leader did, but the attempt orchestrated by was foiled.

He proved stronger than Evans on that day, pacing his leader up the final climb.

He would go on to finish in fifth place overall while becoming the third American to win the young rider classification, after Greg LeMond in 1984 and Andrew Hampsten in 1986.

In August, Van Garderen finished second in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge behind Christian Vande Velde.

He was the first American to wear the King of the Mountains jersey in the history of the Tour de France – Greg LeMond briefly led the mountains classification during the 1986 Tour de France, but since he was also the overall leader at the time, he did not wear the mountains jersey.

During his dramatic stage 8 ride, he was referred to as the "Bozeman Boss" by commentator Phil Liggett.

Tejay van Garderen (born August 12, 1988) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2008 and 2021 for the, , and.

Following his retirement as a cyclist, van Garderen became a directeur sportif for UCI WorldTeam.

Van Garderen was born in Tacoma, Washington, but spent most of his childhood in Bozeman, Montana.

His father is Dutch, and he speaks the Dutch language quite well.

He began riding at 10, and by 14, he nearly beat two hours at the Mount Evans Hill Climb, a 28 mi climb gaining nearly 7,000 ft. He won 10 junior national titles on the roads and in cyclo-cross.

Two of his early teams were the Team Rio Grande Racing developmental squad (2004–2005; Fort Collins, Colorado) and Team 5280 Magazine developmental squad (2005–2006, once part of ; Boulder, Colorado).

Van Garderen's first big senior race was at age 18 in the 2007 Tour of California as a part of the national team.

He pulled out on stage 4.

He rode in the U.S. and in Europe in 2007, and finished 20th in the Tour de l'Avenir.

Van Garderen joined the in 2008.

He lived in the Netherlands and finished second in the Flèche du Sud and Circuito Montañés.

Van Garderen came to a team with the most wins in 2009 thanks to prolific sprinters Mark Cavendish and André Greipel.

He finished 9th in his first stage race, the Volta ao Algarve, climbing to 5th place on the third stage to the Alto do Malhão summit.

In the Tour of Turkey, he came second on two stages and second overall, 29 seconds behind Giovanni Visconti.

In 2011, van Garderen got second place on stage 3 of the Volta ao Algarve and second place in the opening time trial in the Tour de Suisse, behind Fabian Cancellara of.

His strong showing in the Tour of California also earned him the best young rider jersey.

He was chosen to be a part of the Tour de France squad.

This was van Garderen's first Tour de France and he was riding in support of Tony Martin and Peter Velits.

In stage 8, van Garderen won enough points on a Category 2 climb to earn a King of the Mountains jersey and Most Aggressive Rider honors.