Cannondale's Peter Sagan won the seventh stage of the Amgem Tour Of California, a stage he was favourite for.
Sir Bradley Wiggins leading the race by thirty seconds, led the race out with points leader Peter Sagan on a 146.5km stage from Santa Clarita to Pasadena.
Greg Van Avermaet of BMC on his 29th birthday, along with Ben King (Garmin Sharp), Lars Boom (Belkin), Chad Haga (Giant-Shimano), Isaac Bolivar Hernandez (UnitedHealthcare), Luis Enrique Lemus (Jelly Belly) and Eloy Teruel (Jamis - Hagens Berman), finally established a break before the first sprint of the day which Ben King won.
The first climb came with 83.5kms to go and it was Luis Enrique Davila who took the maximum points.
The lead of the escapers was at 2.40 with 63.2kms left on a day where temperatures were up in the 90 degrees.
King and Bolivar went on the attack as the gap went down to 2.05 with Van Avermaet and Haga joining them a couple of kilometres before the second climb.
Bolivar took that climb and the quartet started on the descent through the Angeles National Park.with a thirty five second lead over the three chasers from the original break and 1.45 over the peloton.
Lars Boem put in a superb stint and got up to the four leaders who were 45 seconds ahead of the peloton and a minute ahead of the group of about sixty riders containing Mark Cavendish.
Into Pasendana and there was only Van Avermaet and King who just missed crashing into a police motorbike before starting on the final three circuits of five kilometres.
A Jamis rider in Mendes bridged to the front two and put his arms up in celebration going over the line. However, there was still another lap to go and Cannondale and Trek Factory Racing were on the front having stormed past the trio,
Between fifty and sixty riders were in the front group of riders who were in with a chance of winning the stage and under the flam rouge, BMC led.
Onto the finish straight, Thor Hushovd tried to go but it was Peter Sagan who flew up to take the victory and his eleventh stage win in this race in 3.24.33 ahead of Hushovd, Van Poppel and Dempster.
Bradley Wiggins leads going into the final stage with a thirty second lead over Rohan Dennis. Adam Yates remains in fifth 2.14 down.