Radio Shack's Jens Voigt won the fifth stage of the Tour Of California.
Whilst, most of Europe suffered heavy rain, the weather was still warrm but overcast as the riders set off on the 186km stage from Santa Barbara to Avila Beach.
Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM), Kai Chun Feng (Champion System) and Carter Jones (Bissell).got away early and were 4.35 by the time they got to San Marcos Pass after 25kms where King Of The Mountains leader Carter Jones added more points to his tally by being first over the climb, watched by big crowds.
Passing the Bradbury Dam, the gap went out to 7.35 but it was down to 6.50 when the escapers got to Foxen Canyon and by the time, the feedzone was reached, the gap was down to 4.30.
The first intermediate sprint of the day came at Orcutt and Carter Jones took the points and the second sprint at Guadalupe, Kai Chun Feng took the points as Jones lost contact.
With strong winds the riders were all over the place and a group of nineteen riders including Peter Sagan got away from the peloton and were 30 seconds clear of the main group of riders with 52.3kms
The chasing group caught the three escapers with 48kms remaining although Thomas De Gendt and Kai Chun Feng stayed in the front group of Jens Voight and Irizar Arranburu (RadioShack), Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp), Tejay van Garderen, Thor Hushovd and Michael Schar (BMC), Baden Cooke, Mitchell Docker, Michael Matthews and Cameron Meyers (Orica-GreenEdge), Peter Sagan (Cannondale), Michael Rogers, Jonas Jorgensen and Jay McCarthy (Saxo-Tinkoff), and Alex Candelario (Optum), which was forty seconds ahead of the race leader Janier Acevedo in the second group.
BMC's Thor Hushovd took the points and time bonuses for the third sprint in Arroyo Grande as the gap steadied at forty seconds with 30kms to go.
Ten kilometres later and the gap had gone out to a minute and Teejay Van Garderen was the virtual leader on the road.
With 5.3kms to go, Radio Shack's Jens Voigt, who has never won a Tour of California stage, again defied his 41 years of age by powering away.
Under the Kenda flam rouge and past the watching ranks of police officers, Voigt turned left and then another left to win in a time of 4.41.16 ahead of Farrar, Hushovd, Sagan and Matthews who were six seconds back.
Teejay Van Garderen leads Michael Rogers by 42 seconds with Janier Acevdeo not now third some fifty seconds back ahead of stage six's individual 31km time trial in San Jose.
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