Orica Greenedge's Esteban Chaves won the sixth stage of the Amgem Tour Of California with a fine solo victory.
On another glorious day, stage six with Sir Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky in the lead, was a 156.1km stage from Santa Clarita to Mountain High.
The break of Tom Danielson (Garmin Sharp), Esteban Chaves (Orica GreenEdge), Jack Bobridge (Belkin), Christopher Jones (UnitedHealthcare), David De La Cruz Melgarejo (Team NetApp-Endura) and Javier Megias Leal (Team Novo Nordisk) came together after six kilometres after an initial break involving King Of the Mountains leader Will Routley had been caught.
They were soon away with a lead of 4.15 and Tom Danielson taking the day's two intermediate sprints after Tom Boonen of Omega Pharma Quick Step had joined the list of those abandoning.
As well as two sprints, this was a stage of four climbs and Chris Jones took the first two climbs as their lead came down to 2.55 with 56kms to go.
Mark Cavendish, who had been involved in an earlier crash, suffered a mechanical but was soon back riding.
Jones took the third climb of the day and the escapers set off for the final seventeen mile climb up to Mountain High Ski Resort.
On that climb, Meglas had to change his bike and was forced to leave the other five in the break, which was 2.45 clear with 15.2kms to go, get away from him.
Then there was four when Chris Jones dropped off the break and three when Jack Bobridge did the same.
Danielson, Chaves and De La Cruz had no intention of letting Wiggins and co catch them and extended their lead to three minutes.
Bobridge attempted to get back to the trio in front and with 5.7kms, the Belkin rider was almost in touch distance of the trio.
Team Sky and BMC drove the peloton onwards and they got within ninety seconds of the escapers which had been split following Estaban Chaves going off the front.
De La Cruz chased Chaves whilst Dombroski led the peloton which included Wiggins and Adam Yates.
However, the 24 year old Chaves was not to be caught on gradients of 10% and won the stage in 4.09.10
De La Cruz finished second thirteen seconds later, Danielson in thirs forty one seconds back. Adam Yates got around Wiggins to finish fourth but Wiggins had put a couple of seconds into Rohan Dennis to extend his lead in the race.