Ben King Of Cannondale has won the second stage of the 11th Amgen Tour Of California and taken over the lead of the race.
Peter Sagan was the holder of the race leader and points leader's jersey' after his victory on the opening stage and he led the riders out on a 148km stage from South Pasadena to Santa Clarita.
Twenty two riders were in the first group which broke away after eight kilometres but they were all back together before Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) who took the points on the first climb of the day at Angeles Crest Highway.
A new break of Evan Huffman (Rally Cycling), Ben King (Cannondale), Sindre Skoestad Lunke (Giant-ALpecin) and William Barta (Axeon Hagens Berman) formed.
They took a quick lead which was 5.50 with Huffman taking the points on the second climb ahead of King.
With 91kms left, that lead had gone out to 6.20 and then 7.30 as the breakers went through the feedzone with 77.8kms left.
On the long descent to the Oro Vista Avenue intermediate sprint, the peloton had reduced the gap to 5.15.
Ben King of Cannondale took the sprint with two climbs and another sprint to come in the final fifty plus kilometres.
The gap was down to three minutes as they started on the Little Tujunga Canyon Road climbs.
Mark Cavendish and Sir Bradley Wiggins started to drop back as the peloton was strung out all over the climb.
Evan Huffman took the first climb, beating King in a sprint ahead of Barta after Lunke had dropped back and the second climb to put him in the lead of the KOM competition.
Barta was forced to change his bike on the descent and Team Sky's Vasil Kiriyenka crashed.
BMC got their men on the front as the gap dropped to 1.40 with 12.2kms left.
The peloton kept on the pressure and had the gap down to 40 seconds with 8.8kms to go with and Barta, who was awarded the most courageous jersey, unable to stay with Huffman and King, twenty seconds in front of the pack.
Huffman and King kept battling and managed to extend their lead to a minute with 2.5kms left.
Huffman led going under the flam rouge but it was Ben King who out-sprinted Huffman to take the win in 3.52.09 with Alexander Kristoff in third and Peter Sagan in fourth place with Niccolo Bonifazio in fifth.
Ben King leads the race going into stage three.