The Queen Stage of Tour of California is this 4th stage which, to be honest, is tough enough to be a 'real' queen stage. That said, differences can and should be made on this stage if you've any hopes for the overall classification. Should everything fail, there's 47 Mountain Points to go for instead.
At first, a group of 15 riders tried getting away, but they were caught again at the first intermediate sprint. Instead, Garzelli and Vande Velde attacked and got away. A group behind them formed, and in it were Talabardon, Rodriguez, Chacon, Montana, Feillu, Tondo and Schreurs. Several others tried bridging the gap, and Ortega and Bono succeeded. The attacks kept happening, though, and especially Festina seemed interested in bringing riders to the front.
Garzelli took care of the first 5 mountain points of the day with Vande Velde 2nd. Shortly after, they were caught by the 9 man group behind them. and Montana took care of the 2nd bunch of mountain points. With 77 km to go, they reached the third one, won by Bono - but more importantly, they also reached the foot of Mount Hamilton, At this point, the front group only has a gap of 2'40.
It's also worth noting that Zampieri at the foot managed to join the front group, He had originally attacked with Mehr-Wenige, but the latter had been dropped shortly before. Shortly after, he was caught by the peloton.
On the mountain, Schreurs were dropped and reeled in by the P. Talabardon was the first to reach the top, taking 16 points. But with Montani in 2nd, the latter is at this point virtually in the Mountain Shirt.
54 riders survived the climb in the peloton. Some rejoined during the downhill, though. Either way, Wikipedia once again proved to be in full control and kept the pace high. At the beginning of the last hill, it paid off as the breakaway riders were caught.
With just one climb left to make a difference, Boom decided to attack as the first. He was followed by Valjavec, Chavanel, Cataldo, Castano, Nibali and Phinney.
All of them except Valjavec and Castano were caught shortly after, and counter attacks were launched by Kashechkin, Delgado, Orozco, Monfort and Panayotov. The peloton was completely ripped apart, and for B&O, it didn't get much better as Mestre crashed on the downhill - and Kreuziger way behind.
In front, a group of Kashechkin, Castano and Valjavec had formed with 25 km to go.
Several riders seemed to realize that they were in trouble. Nibali attacked on the flat section and was immediately followed by yellow shirt, Zabriskie. Boom also woke up - with Zabriskie being the strongest and the only one able to bridge the gap to the front.
Behind, the attacks continued by Cataldo, Niemiec, Ortega and Naibo. Of these ones, Niemiec managed to join the front group, making it possible for Lipton to do a 1-2.
With 5 km to go, it's the first riders in front, Cataldo 30 seconds after them and then the peloton with 50 seconds to the front - and with several attacks happening all the time. Just before the sprint, Barredo also makes the attack from the P to the front group - and in the very same moment, Valjavec hits the wall, runs out of energy and is dropped. The sprint can start with 1 km to go.
In the sprint, Castano is the strongest and takes the win! On the very last metres, Valjavec managed to close the gap, although he only takes fourth. Zabriskie did his best to defend his shirt by taking 2nd and Barredo third. The effort doesn't come to much, though, as there's no gap recorded to the peloton.
