A decent challenge on the opening day for the riders with three tricky climbs in the last 75km, with the lumpy Coleman Valley road between 40 and 20km to go the last difficulty.
As mentioned in the preview the sprinters are a bit thin on the ground here though there is a five or six who'll have high hopes of taking the leaders jersey on day one. It is a fairly windy day so any lead out will have to be done with perfection.
Here is our break of the day with just three rider clear.
Italian punchaer Pavarin
Russian breakaway specialist Sokolov
And the beloved French baby face Voeckler
All three well capable on the hills so an interesting three man move.
Pavarin takes the early sprint ahead of Sokolov and Voeckler.
Fast forward to 80km to go and the lead three have a five minute lead having been up to about 8 minutes at one stage. The teams controlling are Festina, Venchi, Pearl Adidas and Heineken. Festina in particular looking very bullish with Contador constantly in about 10th place in the pack.
The first two categorised climbs are particularly steep near the tops.
The first is a second cat climb with points offered down to 5th place so we will keep our eyes peeled to see if anyone jumps from the pack. Up front Pavarin edges out Voeckler and Sokolov.
Passalacqua attacks to take the fourth place points ahead of the steady Festina pace done by Jason Donald and Pichon.
Tommy Voeckler nails the next climb to draw level with Pavarin in the KoM standings.
Laurent Pichon leads the pack over with Pearl Adidas taking close order.
At this stage our breakaway trio, all decent climbers are holding that five minutes quite impressively. It leads to a big pace over this second climb and a split in the pack.
Suddenly Pichon drops off the lead Guerao has been dropped and some of the other Festina's are pacing the second pack!
Granjel Cabrera, Griepal, Howard and Medvedev are other notable names here.
So mass panic behind with the pack continuing to try and reel in this break. Pavarin taking the intermediate sprint between the last two categorised climbs over Voeckler and the struggling Sokolov.
35km to go and this is the finale.
The gaps are as follows with 35km left:
Lead three
First peloton at 2.49
Second peloton at 4.57
It feels as if Festina can get Guerao back on, is this a prequel for the Vuelta though? The gap is visable...
On this second category ascent perhaps a slight surprise as Voeckler drops Pavarin to take the KoM jersey.
Heineken lead the first over through Ethan Weiss, the Americans at least showing themselves as good teammates early on.
Festina are left to do all the work in the second pack and the gap is beginning to grow out to over three minutes. Guerao, Greipel and Granjel Cabrera look unlikely to make the sprint today.
Are we even going to get a sprint? David De La Fuente thinks not as he attacks the first peloton on the plateau of the Valley road.
25km to go and Voeckler remains solo.
Voeckler Pavarin at 16 seconds Sokolov at 51 seconds
First pack at 1.54 (they have reeled De La Fuente back in)
Second pack at 5.44
15km to go and Voeckler is descending as hard as he can, though his refusal to work with Pavarin could work against him.
Voeckler Pavarin at 16
first pack at 1.16
Second pack at 6.01
Into the last 10kms and CalGiant are keeping the pace high here through Weiss and Bauer two very decent roulers.
Bauer makes the catch as Cancellara steams through into the last 5km with Van Stayen on his wheel.
The sprinters are having to work ridiculously hard to stay with this motorbike!
Van Stayen is glued to his teammates wheel, with Holloway and Impey battling to get on Van Stayen's wheel. Kreder, TvG, Rabon, Van der velde and Van den Hugenhaben are also here.
Holloway just gets blown away as Van Den Broeck comes past to contest the sprint.
Former Red Bull man Impey takes the wheel of his usurper Van Stayen with only really Van den Hugenhaben able to get nearly the powerful lead out.
Sensibly the sprinters remain queued up as Cancellara's early power is waning slightly allowing a queue.
Cancellara van Stayen Impey Vanden Hugenhaben TvG Rabon Kreder Van der Velde
Bobridge is hanging around too for some reason.
There is only 60 or so riders left in the reduced pack, though the GC favourites all seem to be there.
Cancellara leads them into the bend into the home stretch.
Van Stayen punches it under the 1km banner with Impey the only rider able to lift the pace to go with him.
Impey is struggling to hold the wheel with TvG weaving his way through the red bulls looking for a time bonus.
TvG is looking fast as he overtakes Cancellara who will see Van Stayen now extending his advantage over Impey.
Bobridge celebrates in the background as Van Stayen takes the opening stage with much credit to Cancellara who did the job of two men there.
Impey is second and TvG third, the American may hope to take the lead into tomorrow's even more hilly stage.
Cancellara is 4th, Vanden Hugenhaben 5th, Bobridge 6th then Rabon, Van Den Broeck.
The Guerao group ended up coming in nine minutes down with no real GC candidates there and only Festina looking to work no real impetus late on. Pavarin, Voeckler and Sokolov were all dropped in the finale meaning the mountains classification was the only prize other than glory for them.
Stage results
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Michael Van Stayen
Simply Red Bull
4h47'10
2
Daryl Impey
Aker - MOT
s.t.
3
Tejay Van Garderen
Wikipedia
s.t.
4
Fabian Cancellara
Simply Red Bull
s.t.
5
Robin van der Hugenhaben
Koenigsegg
s.t.
6
Jack Bobridge
Simply Red Bull
s.t.
7
Frantisek Rabon
Milka - AVG
s.t.
8
Jurgen Van den Broeck
Team Puma - SAP
s.t.
9
Ricardo Van der Velde
Team Bacardi
s.t.
10
Wesley Kreder
Project 1t4i
s.t.
11
Stefan Denifl
Wikipedia
s.t.
12
Dan Holloway
Pokerstars.com
s.t.
13
Daniel Martin
Pendleton's
s.t.
14
Rafael Valls
Santander
s.t.
15
Luis Leon Sanchez Gil
Project 1t4i
s.t.
16
Vicente Reynès
Santander
s.t.
17
Walter Pedraza
Koenigsegg
s.t.
18
Franco Pellizotti
Team WWE
s.t.
19
David De la Fuente
Lotto - Cervelo
s.t.
20
Domenik Klemme
Team B&O
s.t.
21
Fredrik Kessiakoff
Team WWE
s.t.
22
Brent Bookwalter
Wikipedia
s.t.
23
Tiago Machado
Pearl Adidas
s.t.
24
Mario Vogt
Team Puma - SAP
s.t.
25
Matthias Frank
UBS - BMC
s.t.
26
Arnold Jeannesson
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
s.t.
27
Jack Bauer
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
s.t.
28
Andrew Talansky
Wikipedia
s.t.
29
Vladimir Gusev
Pendleton's
s.t.
30
Mauricio Ardila
Team WWE
s.t.
31
Konstantin Siutsou
Pendleton's
s.t.
32
Kleber Silva
Pendleton's
s.t.
33
Danny Summerhill
Wikipedia
s.t.
34
Nick Kinney
Wikipedia
s.t.
35
Janez Brajkovic
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
