Movistar's Alejandro Valverde has won the fourth stage of the Vuelta a España.
Stage three with its finish in Malage failed to produce any change in the red jersey, so on a 209.6km stage from Estepona to Vejer de la Frontera, without the poorly Fabian Cancellera, Mickael Delage (FDJ), Bert Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Nikolas Maes (Etixx-Quick Step), Jimmy Engoulvent (Europcar), Kristijan Durasek (Lampre-Merida) and Markel Irizar (Trek Factory Racing) got into a break and they were 3.40 ahead after ten kilometres and nine minutes clear after twenty one kilometres.
It did go out to 13.20 but Orica GreenEdge put in a bit of pressure and the gap came down to 12.10 after forty kilometres and 9.10 thirty five kilometres later.
At the halfway stage and with the riders having taken their lunch, the gap was down to 7.55.
The gap continued to fall and was down to just under two minutes with less than forty kilometres left to race.
Tejay Van Garderen was one of a number of riders who were delayed by a roundabout with 32kms left as the gap now dropped to 53 seconds to those up front after Markel Irizar had taken the intermediate sprint.
Irlzar and Engoulvent were the only ones left in the break for the final twenty kilometres on another lovely day and with eleven kilometres left, they were caught anf Tinkoff Saxo were leading the peloton.
Onto the final climb up to the finish with four kilometres to go and the peloton split occured which Bilbao of Caja Rural took advantage of.
There were big crowds as Bilbao continued to hold off the group of favourites on the descent with 2.6kms to go.
The road started to get steeper again but Bilbao was holding on until Sammy Sanchez shot away with 1.7kms left.
Nicholas Roche led the chase and caught up to Sanchez and the pair were together under the flam rouge.
Wtth 500 metres to go, Roche of Team Sky was on the front, Peter Sagan came up to join him as did Alejandro Valverde who won in a time of 5.07.31 ahead of Sagan, Moreno, Roche and Goncalves.
Esteban Chaves retains his lead in the race by five seconds from Tom Dumoulin, twelve seconds from Nicholas Roche and twenty five seconds from Alejandro Valvderde.
Chris Froome is in ninth place some forty seconds down.
Valverde said: "Sometimes it is our team that is setting the tempo. Today we were more calm so we sat with Katusha and in the last 200m's I just flew.
"I knew Sagan was with me as I could see by his hair but I knew that today was my victory."