Peter Sagan made it a hat-trick when he won the third stage of the 7th Amgen Tour Of California today.
Temperatures of 25oc, greeted the riders minus Bissell Racing's Patrick Bevin and Eric Young who were outside of the time and two abandonments, one being Brit Steve Cummings who had a broken wrist, as they left San Jose heading for Livermore.
Four riders broke early with Sébastian Salas (Team Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies), Pat McCarty (Spidertech Powered By C10), Jeremy Vennell (Bissell Cycling) and Wilson Alexander Marentes (Colombia-Coldeportes) and they got a lead of 8:40 before the first King Of The Mountains Climb came at Mount Diablo and saw Sébastian Salas the first rider over and on the descent.
Vennell and Marentes decided that they would be better off with just the two of them working at the front and they shot off, leaving Salas and McCarty to follow., some six minutes ahead of the peloton including race leader Peter Sagan.
The gap dropped to 2.40 with 34kms to go but with 25kms to go, the front two shook hands and their day at the head of the race was over.
The peloton which had solit into two groups, headed for Patterson Pass.
With 20kms to go, Michael Rodriquez of the Colombia Coleportes team tried to go but was soon caught.
Nicholas Roche (pictured below) made an attack along with Fabio Duarte (Colombia-Coldeportes on Patterson Pass
There were big crowds on the top of Patterson Pass to see Duarte and Roche go over the top followed by Geniez of Argo Shimano.
With ten kilometres to go, their lead was twenty seconds. Nibali was on the front of the peloton and with 8.70kms to go, Roche and Duarte shook hands and the sprinters into the peloton took over.
Tom Boonen (pictured below) came up to the front as Roche's team mates worked hard to get their men to the fore.
Riders were all over the road with a kilometre to go. Peter Sagan moved up and the riders made the final turn safely. Sagan kept going and won his third successive stage, ahead of Haussler and Boonen.
Sagan keeps his leaders jersey by 1q2 seconds
Tomorrow's fourth stage is from Sonora to Clovis and is 209.6kms long.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM