Matteo Trentin of Omega Pharma Quick Step won the fourteenth stage of the Tour De France.
A day of seven small climbs for the 181 riders on this 191km stage from Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule to Lyon with two category three climbs and five category four climbs.
At 12.40pm local time, the flag was dropped and the racing got underway on a day of temperatures of 24 degrees. Three kilometres had been raced when Lottobelisol's Lars Bak, AG2R's Blel Kadri and Radio Shack's Jens Jens Voigt, the elder statesman of the race, broke away and took a thirty second lead ten kilometres later.
FDJ's Arthur Vichot and Cofidis' Christophe Le Mevel gave chase to the trio and caught them to form a group of five riders which was thirty seconds ahead of Marino and Veilleux and 55 seconds ahead of the peloton led by Chris Froome after twenty kilometres.
They were caught by the likes of David Millar and an group of eighteen riders featuring Bak, Burghardt, van Garderen, Bakelants, Voigt, Gautier, Vichot, Kadri, Brutt, Erviti, Rojas, Garcia,Trentin, Talansky, Albasini, Geschke, and Simon.
Geschke took the single point on the first climb of the day on the cote de Marcigny as the peloton dropped to 1.05 behind this leading group.
After grabbing their musettes for lunch, the category four Cote de la Croix Couverte was next and Jan Bakelands was first to the point on offer this time round.
There were more points on offer in Thizy Les Bourges where there was first the day's intermediate sprint and a category three climb.
With the gap to the peloton at 3.15, Rojas took the twenty points for the sprint but it was Kadri who took the points on the Cote de Thizy Les Bourgs and on the Category Three Col du Pilun.
It went out to 5.47 behind when the group of eighteen started on the Cote de Lozanne, which saw Jens Voigt this time triumph.
Attacks to form a smaller group amongst the eighteen escapers failed as the race came onto the packed streets of Lyon.
Tejay Van Garderen took the Cote de la Duchere but just over the summit, Sojasun's Julien Simon went away.
Simon took the final Cote de la Croix Rousse, just missing a police woman before he started on the descent with a 22 second lead over a fifteen man group which had shed Millar and Voigt.
Simon, who was awarded the day's Combativity award, crossed the Rhone and with five kilometres, it looked like his race. However, Albasini and Trentin caught him under the flam rouge.
It was now down to asprint between twelve riders. Everyone was looking at each other so Bakelandts tried but Omega Pharma Quick Step's Matteo Trentin came down to the middle to win in a time of 4.15.11 ahead of Michael Albasini, Andrew Talansky, Jose Rojas and Egoitz Garcia.
Chris Froome finished 22nd, some 7.17 down but still leads Belkin's Bauke Mollema by 2-28 and Alberto Contador by 3.45.