Big bear lake offers opportunities for attacks, but it's flattish run-in on the plateau may well be expected to result in a small group sprint.
Can anyone pull a Machado and halt the Red Bull momentum? Van den Hugenhaben won the last hilly group sprint, Van Garderen and Van Den Broeck looked handy there too.
The riders have a tough day out there with a first category climb to clamber over in the first half of the day along with this long bear lake ascent.
Seven riders are clear on the 4th category early climb.
They are:
Laengen who has 10 KoM points. Kocjan Zoidl Kelderman who has 34 KoM points Aregger Dumoilin Gallego Martin
Laengen beats Kelderman to the top.
Kelderman overtaking Kinney to take the provisional KoM overall lead.
This is going to be our break of the day, so Frei and Kruisjwijk riders of teams without too much GC ambition look to bridge across.
Kocjan is the best placed on GC nine minutes down on Cancellara, so no concern for the riders at the sprint.
Onto that first category ascent of Angeles Crest then the break of now nine riders joined by the late attackers wonder if they could be allowed a tilt at stage glory. This may well suit the Red Bull team of race leader Cancellara, who are setting the steadiest tempos on the climb through Opie and Turgot.
Kelderman takes the climb in first over Laengen.
It shores up the young Dutchman's lead in the King of the Mountains, it also moves Laengen up into provisional joint third with 28 total KoM points.
The pack crest the climb over 13 minutes down.
Looks a great chance for our breakaway men to take a bit of stage glory today.
No interest in the sprint from the break, whose lead has dropped down to 11.30 with 75km to go. Could be quite an interesting chase up the long Big Bear Lake ascent.
Our breakaways begin the climbing of this undulating road with 8 minutes in hand and 62km to go to the finish.
We have two 3rd category point primes on this road, Kelderman comfortably takes the first of these over Laengen. Just after this first prime there is a nasty wall of 20% for about 1.5kms. Red Bull lead the pack over it.
They are keeping things calm though and allowing the break freedom as with 50km to go they still have 9 minutes. However 9 is to become 8 as Gallegos Martin struggles to hang on.
Laengen nails the last of the primes, this acceleration may hurt the breaks numbers even more.
Laengen will be second in that classification at the end of the day to Kelderman. We see things settle down after the classification point to just six riders left.
Kelderman, Laengen, Frei, Zoidl, Aregger and Kocjan.
33km to go and the break have our last bit of climbing to do. Red Bull have played a bit of a dangerous game here leaving Kocjan dangling about 9 minutes clear. However other teams are now working at the front with them.
With Puma, Pearl Adidas and Heineken helping out.
30km to go the gaps are.
lead six ( Kocjan, Frei, Laengen, Kelderman, Aregger, Zoidl) lead
Dumoilin, Kruijswijk at 1.50
Gallego Martin at 3.58
99 man favourites group at 8.26
It's a difficult climb to see many attacks coming, but Luis Leon Sanchez feels he has no option as he puts in a dig with 25km to go.
The break get to the top of the climbing with 20km to go.
Their lead to Sanchez is six minutes and the pack is 6.27.
Van Den Broeck is trying something.
A whole load of other riders respond to this seeing a chance to form a group of favourites.
Brajkovic, Van den Hugenhaben, Grivko, Martin, Uran, Bookwalter and Denifl.
The two Wikipedia's cannot get away, but Denifl tries again with Machado following.
It's a chaotic situation with the favourites with Cancellara and perhaps Contador being put to the sword on Bear Lake. Up front the break of six leaders still have five minutes in hand with 15km to go and things are looking lively there too.
Zoidl and Frei have broken clear.
13km to go: here is the race situation.
Zoidl and Frei lead
Kocjan, Kelderman, Laengen, Aregger at 25 seconds.
Attacking favourites group of Uran, Machado, Sanchez Gil, VdB, Van den Hugenhaben, Martin, Grivko, Denifl, Brajkovic at 4.31.
Cancellara, Contador, TvG group at 5.20 (only 44 riders here).
Somewhat bizarrely Pendletons rider Gusev is helping the one remaining Red Bull Margoliot and Festina's Rolland chase. Wikipedia are helping too.
Up front our lead duo admire the big bear lake and maintain a decent 30 second gap aware that Kocjan awaits in the chasers.
The attackers group is also holding a 42 second gap over the yellow jersey group.
Cancellara himself has come to the front of it with Contador.
The gap to the break has reduced rapidly as a result of the GC action with 4km left Zoidl and Frei have 30 seconds on the four chasers and just two minutes on the GC attackers.
Drama as we cross the bridge into our last 2.5km and climb to the finish as this nine man group hold 30 seconds over the yellow jersey group.
Wyss, De La Fuente and Valls attempt to attack out of it.
1.5km to go: Our two leaders are desperately hanging on.
Zoidl has sat on Frei's wheel for the last kilometre and looks ready for the sprint.
The four man former breakaways still have 30 seconds on those GC attackers, a tempting eight second third place bonification is the carrot.
The kite, Frei launches his sprint, Zoidl has nothing.
Brajkovic leads the GC attackers group up to the four breakaway riders Van Den Broeck and Uran are also there.
Glory for Frei here.
Zoidl has started sprinting now and should hold second.
Brajkovic and Van Den Broeck are trying desperately to get past the sprinting breakaways.
De la Fuente and Valls are looking to sprint across the gap.
Frei celebrates a breakaway win.
Zoidl takes second, he actually sprinted quite fast seemingly caught out by Frei's sprint.
Brajkovic just edges out the fast finishing Martin for the third place bonification. van Den Broeck is fifth ahead of Laengen
Looks like a gap will be recorded behind as De La Fuente and Valls come home, Contador and Cancellara sprinting home.
The move leads to 26 seconds gained or 34 in Brajkovic's case. Tellingly it moves him 1.16 clear of Contador.
However Fabian Cancellara retains the leaders jersey.
Stage Rankings
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Thomas Frei
UBS - BMC
5h15'52
2
Riccardo Zoidl
Vesuvio - Accumalux
s.t.
3
Janez Brajkovic
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
+ 20
4
Daniel Martin
Pendleton's
s.t.
5
Jurgen Van den Broeck
Team Puma - SAP
s.t.
6
Vegard Stake Laengen
Aker - MOT
s.t.
7
Stefan Denifl
Wikipedia
s.t.
8
Rigoberto Úran
Milka - AVG
s.t.
9
Tiago Machado
Pearl Adidas
s.t.
10
Robin van der Hugenhaben
Koenigsegg
s.t.
11
Andrei Grivko
Team B&O
s.t.
12
Wilco Kelderman
Team Puma - SAP
s.t.
13
Luis Leon Sanchez Gil
Project 1t4i
s.t.
14
Jure Kocjan
Team Bacardi
s.t.
15
Marcel Aregger
Pro Team Venchi - Sugoi
s.t.
16
David De la Fuente
Lotto - Cervelo
+ 46
17
Rafael Valls
Santander
s.t.
18
Alberto Contador
Festina-Canal+
s.t.
19
Fabian Cancellara
Simply Red Bull
s.t.
20
Ricardo Van der Velde
Team Bacardi
s.t.
21
Domenik Klemme
Team B&O
s.t.
22
Frantisek Rabon
Milka - AVG
s.t.
23
Marcello Pavarin
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
s.t.
24
Franco Pellizotti
Team WWE
s.t.
25
Dominique Nerz
Team Puma - SAP
s.t.
26
Michael Albasini
UBS - BMC
s.t.
27
Matthias Frank
UBS - BMC
s.t.
28
Mauricio Ardila
Team WWE
s.t.
29
Christophe Kern
Pokerstars.com
s.t.
30
Brent Bookwalter
Wikipedia
s.t.
31
Walter Pedraza
Koenigsegg
s.t.
32
Andrew Talansky
Wikipedia
s.t.
33
Konstantin Siutsou
Pendleton's
s.t.
34
Arnold Jeannesson
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
