Sagan grabbed a 10-second time bonus for his first-place finish, leaving him only nine seconds out of first. UnitedHealthcare’s Rory Sutherland got a 6-second bonus, which moved him past teammate Mark de Maar into fifth overall.
HTC-Columbia’s Michael Rodgers kept the yellow jersey, his 4-second bonus being the whole of his lead over Garmin-Transition’s David Zabriskie.
Levi Leipheimer finished fourth, and lies fourth in the General Classification, 14 seconds out.
Stage Seven is a 33-kilometer individual Time Trial around the street of Los Angeles. The course contains a few good hills, which might test a few of the pure TT specialists.
Leipheimer, Zabriskie, and Rodgers are all noted for their time-trialing ability. Which one of them has more left? Can any of them beat Peter Sagan, who seems to have endless reserves of power right now?
35 seconds separates the top ten riders in the field. The race is still wide open, with two stages left to go.
Stage Six
Stage Six was the first alpine stage of the 2010 Tour of California, and was certainly the hardest stage. With seven categorized climbs in a stage that was mostly uphill and finished at just under 7000 feet of elevation, the stage offered all the challenges a professional rider could want.
While the climbs weren’t as steep as the European mountain passes generally are, they made up for it in length, and a lot of good riders couldn’t keep up over the course of the stage.
Stage Six was a tale of breakaways and attacks. The first, and longest-lived, started about seven miles into the stage, before the first climb. An eight-rider group got away and stayed away for most of the stage. Riders dropped off the back on the later climbs, but five remained all the way to the final climb.
The final five were George Hincapie (BMC,) Jacob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank,) Matt Wilson (Garmin Transitions,) Jason McCartney (Radio Shack,) and Thomas Rabou (Team Type 1.)
The peloton split over the climbs, leaving about 25 riders, including the yellow jersey, to chase the breakaway. Radio Shack and HTC-Columbia led the first chase group. Tony Martin did huge pulls, setting the pace for nearly the entire second half of the stage.
25 miles out, witht the gap at about 2:40, attacks started in the peloton. Radio Shack riders Chris Horner and Janez Brajkovic attacked repeatedly trying to wear out the competition.
At about the same time, Jason McCartney attacked the break, followed by Hincapie and Matt Wilson.
HTC’s Tom Danielson attacked the peloton, followed by Horner. A seven-rider break formed briefly, then was caught. Up front the three leaders were caught by the other two.
15 miles out the peloton ran down Leipheimer, Wilson, and MCartney. Immediately Mark de Maar of UnitedHealthcare attacked and got away by 45 seconds.
Back in the peloton, Radio Shack’s Ryder Hesjedal and Cervélo’s Oscar Pujol took their shots at the peloton, only to get dragged back.
12 miles out, Matt Wilson, after having ridden the in the break all day, took off after de Maar. Two miles later the Garmin rider caught de Maar. It seemed these two might just be able to stay away.
Tony Martin wasn’t going to let that happen. He wanted to make sure that no one got enough in time bonuses to take the yellow jersey from team leader Michael Rodgers. Martin pushed the peloton at an heroic pace, seeing never to tire. Finally, with 1.5 km to go, the breakaway was run down and absorbed.
Coming into the final kilometerevryone was trying to jockey for position and waiting to see who would commit first.
Oscar Pujol made the first move, starting 800 meters from the line. No one marked him. Then, 400 meters out, Michael Rodgers made his move, accelerating strongly and catching up to Pujol, who was fading.
Seconds after Rodgers broke, Liquigas rider Peter Sagan pulled out of his slipstream and outpowered everyone to the line. This was Sagan’s second stage win in a row and his fifth of the season. Only 20 years of age, Sagan has a long, bright future ahead in cycling.
| Stage Six Amgen Tour of California | |||
|
| Rider | Team | Time |
| 1 | Peter Sagan | Liquigas | 6:07:08 |
| 2 | Rory Sutherland | UnitedHealthcare | 0 |
| 3 | Michael Rodgers | HTC-Columbia | 0 |
| 4 | Levi Leipheimer | Radio Shack | 0 |
| 5 | Ryder Hesjedal | HTC-Columbia | 0 |
| 6 | Phil Zajicek | Fly V | 0 |
| 7 | Paul Martens | Rabobbank | 0 |
| 8 | David Zabriskie | Garmin-Transitions | 0 |
| 9 | Jens Voigt | Saxo Bank | 0 |
| 10 | Tom Danielson | Garmin-Transitions | 0 |
| General Classification | |||
|
| Rider | Team | Time |
| 1 | Michael Rogers | HTC-Columbia | 29:04:03 |
| 2 | Dave Zabriskie | Garmin-Transitions | 00:04 |
| 3 | Peter Sagan | Liquigas-Doimo | 00:09 |
| 4 | Levi Leipheimer | Team Radioshack | 00:14 |
| 5 | Rory Sutherland | Unitedhealthcare | 00:29 |
| 6 | Marc De Maar | Unitedhealthcare | 00:32 |
| 7 | Ryder Hesjedal | Garmin-Transitions | 00:35 |
| 8 | Janez Brajkovic | Team Radioshack | 00:35 |
| 9 | Christopher Horner | Team Radioshack | 00:35 |
| 10 | Thomas Danielson | Garmin-Transitions | 00:35 |
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