A typical California-stage with lots of not very steep, short hills which may eventually tire some of the sprinters and chasing teams, possibly letting the breakaway making it -- oh, well, except for the fact that this hasn't happened yet.
The stage started off with the usual extreme amount of attacks. All breakaway ridere were caught before the first mountain sprint, though. Ten Dam attacked and took the points ahead of Barredo and Bono. In the end, the following riders ended up in the BOTD: Creed, Kern, Mehr-Wenige, Wu, Ten Dam, Mugerli, Di Maggio and Fertonani.
The 8 riders managed to get a gap of 5'20 before it started decreasing with 110 km to go. Behind them, a bunch of riders started attacking: Mestre, Walker, Stundzia and Augustyn got away - with Mestre being remarkly stronger than the rest and dropping them.
After the attack, the gap started increasing again, and with 60 km to go, it was status quo: a gap of c. 5 minutes and with several teams chasing them.
In front, Di Maggio from the Lipton team started skipping relays while Mestre seemed too tired to close the gap. At one point, he was pretty close, but with 30 km to go, it seemed like he had given up. More importantly, the riders in front still had a gap of 2'30 at this point. And even more importantly: The favourites were going for it on this stage! Delgado, Lobato (34th, 36 seconds after) and Boom were the first to attack.
Obviously, the other favourites weren't going to let this go. Nibali attacked, followed by Kashechkin, Cataldo and Barredo. They caught Delgado who couldn't keep up with Boom who at this time had reached the front group.
Zabriskie decided not to use his team and also attacked which resulted in even more counter attacks, this time from Valjavec, Mandri and Niemiec.
2nd placed Castano sent his team to the front, but eventually gave up and attacked with Chavanel, Sastre, Klemme and Kilun trying to follow him.
With 10 km to go, Boom and Kashechkin were in front of all the other favourites, who had all teamed up in the same group, with 30 seconds. 5 km later, the gap had increased with 2 seconds.
With 3 km to go, Zabriskie realized that he was about to lose his lead. The favourites couldn't work together, and the gap to the front riders kept increasing - so Zabriskie attacked and launched his sprint shortly after.
In front, Boom and Kashechkin were fighting it out for not only the win, but also the leader's shirt.
But this is a victory for Boom and Virgin! Kashechkin is 2nd, and they will both be counting the seconds down to the favourites' peloton.
Nibali passes the line 40 seconds after Kashechkin. Zabriskie is fourth - question is: Will he keep his shirt?
