Tinkoff's Peter Sagan has won the fourth stage of the AmgenTour Of California.
A 217km stage from Morro Bay to the Laguna Seca Raceway had Julian Alaphilippe of Etixx - Quick-Step with a nineteen second lead and eleven riders take an early lead and a crash before Julian Alaphilippe took the opening sprint.
With sixty kilometres gone, a new break formed and in it was Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), Michael Mørkøv (Katusha), Ryan Anderson (Direct Energie), Timo Roosen (LottoNl-Jumbo), Tanner Putt (UnitedHealthcare), Gregory Daniel (Axeon Hagens Berman) and William Routley (Rally Cycling).
They were quickly a minute ahead as Will Routley took the first and second climbs of the stage.
The seven took their lead out to 4.15 but it was back down to 3.15 with a hundred kilometres remaining.
The lead went back out to four minutes and back down to 3.05 as Will Routley took the next climb and Cavendish, the most courageous rider of the day, took the second sprint on Highway One.
The gap was under two minutes going into the final twenty kilometres and on the penultimate climb.
Cavendish took a big turn on the front and then dropped out of the front group with Putt, so Ryan Anderson took over on the front.
Greg Daniel set off up Laureless Road summit as Andrew Talansky led a group up the climb and then Daniel started on the descent with only a ten second lead over the peloton.
Onto the final climb which was 1km long with 10% averages and Daniel was burying himself in a bid to stay away but with 3kms to go, he was caught and Guerrero of Axeon went away and took the climb.
Nathan Haas attacked as the riders got to the raceway with Peter Sagan handily placed along with Greg Van Avermaet of BMC.
Haas was caught so Peter Stetina went on the left before he was caught with 800ms to go. Haas attacked again but it was Peter Sagan who came up to win in 5.16.33 ahead of Greg Van Avermaet of BMC, Nathan Haas of Dimension Data, Brent Bookwalter of BMC and British rider Tao Geoghegan-Hart of Axeon Hagens Berman.
Julian Alaphilippe finished safely and leads Peter Stetina by 22 seconds