Katusha's Alexandr Kristoff took victory on stage twelve of the Tour De France.
After his brave battle yesterday, Andrew Talansky of Garmin Sharp, was not at the start for this 185.5km stage from Bourg-en-Bresse to Saint-Étienne.
Bartosz Huzarski opened proceedings with an attack after two kilometres but he was soon caught and seven kilometres later, Garmin-Sharp's Sebastian Langeveld attacked and was soon joined by Gregory Rast (Trek Factory Racing), Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge), Florian Vachon (Bretagne-Seche Environment) and David de la Cruz (NetApp-Endrua).
With none of these riders a threat to the yellow jersey on the back of Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, the five were allowed to get five minutes ahead after 39 kilometres and just before Vachon took the intermediate sprint in Romanèche-Thorins.
De La Cruz took the points on the first climb of the day - the Col du Brouilly as their lead dropped to 3.55 on what was a glorious day and with a lead of 4.40, took the points on the category three Cote de Soule d'Oingt as the speed for the first two hours averaged at 41km/h.
There was a crash on a right hand bend in Le Bois-dOingt and down went De La Cruz and Langeveld who got back on his bike due to the melting tarmac on the road. De La Cruz looked in a bad way as Rast, Clarke and Vachon went away with Langeveld later joining them whilst De La Cruz was forced to abandon with what looked like a collarbone injury.
The four out front had a lead of 2.20 with 70kms remaining and twenty kilometres later, only Langeveld and Clarke were left up front with a lead of 2.13 heading for the category four col des Brosses climb.
Langeveld took the two points for the climb and set off into the Loire department heading for the final climb on the Cote de Grammond with Perrig Quémeneur and Cyril Gautier (Europcar) trying to close them down.
With 25kms to go, Clarke attacked and took the point on the climb, taking his lead to eight seconds over the Europcar duo who had passed Langevald.
Clarke was joined by Quémeneur and Gautier with twenty kilometres remaining. The three stayed together at 72kmh heading towards Saint Etienne.
As the peloton loomed large, Gautier took on Clarke. The duo shook their heads and with five kilometres to go, they were caught.
A left hand bend saw the riders taking every way possible to get in the best positiion in the peloton which led by Cannondale.
There was a crash with 3.4kms to go which featured Andre Greipel of Lotto Belisol, who blamed Chavanel for causing the crash whilst Cannondale continued to work on the front.
Heading towards the finish line on the Rue Des Acieries which has a 320m finishing straight, Peter Sagan was handily placed.
Tony Martin was leading out Trentin but Katusha's Kristoff moved up and took the win ahead of Peter Sagan and Arnaud Demare in 4.32.11.
Vincenzo Nibali retains his leaders jersey with a lead of 2.23
.