Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider to win the Amgen Tour Of California with a safe finish on the eighth stage.
The final stage saw Team Sky's Sir Bradley Wiggins in the lead by thirty seconds over Rohan Dennis of Garmin Sharp for this 122km stage around Thousand Oaks.
The stage took the form of a criterium race with three 32kms circuits followed by three 7.4km circuits.
It was a course which also had climbs and Jones took the first one at Rock Store before Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Jens Voigt (Trek Factory Racing), Matthew Hayman (Orica-GreenEdge), Jack BoBridge (Belkin), Chad Haga (Giant-Shimano), Chris Jones (UnitedHealthcare) and Alex Candelario (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) formed a breakway group.
Terpstra took the first intermediate sprint and then got away with Jack Bobridge on the second visit to the Rock Store climb, establishing a two minute lead over the peloton who had engulfed the other escapers.
Team Sky brought that lead down to fifty seconds and then down to thirty seconds with 32kms to go.
Terpstra and Bobridge were passed by a front group containing about thirty riders and then the peloton.
Jack Bobridge (Belkin) Jens Keukeleire (Orica), Lucas Euser (UHC) and Eloy Teruel (Jamis-Hagens Berman) took over on the front with Euser takkng the hot spot sprint points, some twenty five seconds ahead of the peloton, which now had Mark Cavendish back in the fold with 14.2kms left of the race.
Only Teruel was left when up came the peloton with 5.1kms to go. The sprinters teams moved up with Giant Shimano on the front.
Onto the final section and it was between Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan with John Degenkolb also in the mix but it was Cavendish, in his British champions jersey, who took his second victory in this race in 2.53.50 by the width of a tyre from Degenkolb followed by Peter Sagan.
Wiggan said about his win: "Incredible team around me. "They have all done a fantastic job. This race win is right up there for satisfaction. I had set my stall to win this race and at 34, it was nice to still be winning at my age. "I'm going back to Beverley Hills and I'll probably enjoy a quiet Gin and Tonic"
Peter Sagan of Cannondale won the Points Classification.
General Classification
1 Sir Bradley Wiggins Team Sky 28.22.05
2 Rohan Dennis Garmin Sharp +0.30
3 Lawson Craddock Team Giant-Shimano +1:48
4 Tiago Machado Team NetApp-Endura +2:02
5 Adam Yates Orica GreenEdge +2:14
6 Peter Stetina BMC Racing +2:30
7 Esteban Chaves Orica GreenEdge +2:39
8 Laurens Ten Dam Belkin +3:01
9 Javier Acevedo Garmin Sharp +3:05
10 David De La Cruz Team NetApp-Endura +3:06