Another day, another early breakaway, and another day of Bradley Wiggins (SKY) managing the chase well enough to keep the yellow jersey as overall leader of the 2014 Amgen Tour of California.
Christopher Jones (United Healthcare), Thomas Danielson (Garmin-Sharp), Esteban Chaves (Orica Green Edge), David De la Cruz (NetApp Endura) and Javier Megias (Novo Nordisk ) and Jack Bobridge (Belkin)) took off early from the peloton -which hardly seemed to notice. All but Bobridge took points in the first king of the mountain (KOM) test of the stage.
With 50 miles left, the breakaway pack was ahead by more than four minutes. Along the way, Danielson, Megias, and De La Cruz took points at the first sprint of the day. Jones, Chaves and Danielson would take points at the following KOM.
The six breakaway riders held no threat to the overall tour leaders -among them Rohan Dennis (Garmin Sharp) in second place behind Bradley Wiggins. With 4 miles remaining, Dennis tried a sneak attack but didn't get far and didn't get close enough to the breakaway pack to be involved.
Esteban Chaves -with a little more than two miles to go- attacked out of the breakaway and won easily as the stage finished at Mountain High North -east of Los Angeles. De la Cruz and Danielson finished second and third respectively.
Wiggins finishes with the yellow jersey, Sagan (CAN) with the green jersey for best overall sprinter, and Will Routley (OPM) with the polka-dotted king of the mountain jersey.
Riders in stage seven from Santa Clarita to Pasadena tomorrow will continue to have warm weather. The National Weather Service forecast calls for upper 80's -a few degrees cooler than today.
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