Radio Shack's Chris Horner won the Fourth Stage of AMGEM Tour Of California.
Stage four was 88 miles long and showed the riders who started in Livermore the way to San Jose.
With Lance Armstrong (pictured above) rumoured to be watching his Radio Shack team at this stage, the race saw a fast start and ten riders in Martin Pedersen (Leopard Trek), Lars Boom (Rabobank Cycling Team), Rubens Bertogliati (Team Type 1-Sanofi Aventis), Will Routley (Team Spidertech Powered By C10), Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell Cycling), Jeremy Vennell (Bissell Cycling), Alastair Loutit (Jelly Belly p/b Kenda), Jesse Anthony (Kelly Benefit Strategies-OptumHealth) and James Stemper (Kenda/5-hour Energy Pro Cycling presented by Geargrinder) all getting away.
King Of The Mountains points was on the minds of a number of these escapees and it was Lars Boom who took the first KOM climb as the gap between them and the peleton rose to two and a half minutes.
Boom was third in the second KOM but he was back in the peleton at the third King Of The Mountains climb on Mount Hamilton.
Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) and Paul Martens (Rabobank) got clear at the front and had a thirty second lead with twenty kilometres left of the stage which finished on Sierra Road after a Sierra Grade climb.
Martens missed a corner and went off road as did a few riders behind him with 12.50km to go.
Hesjedal dropped Martens and went for the leaders gold jersey who was 55 seconds ahead of a peleton led by Radio Shack includng Chris Horner (pictured below) and Levi Leipheimer.
With 3.6km to go, Horner and Leipheimer went past Heskedal as the race went up the Sierra Grade which has a 14% gradient.
Horner went away on a sunny afternoon as the chasers including Andy Schleck and former Australian champion Rory Sutherland were now a minute back.
That was one minute and eight seconds as Horner went under the Kenda one kilometre to go marker.
The 39 year old Horner kept going and he took the race in a time of 3hrs 27 mins and 51 seconds.
Leopard Trek's Andy Schleck riding today in memory of Woulter Weylandt finished in second with Sutherland third, Leipheimer fourth and Tom Danielson in fifth Hesjedal finished in seventh.
Horner now leads the race by one minute and fifteen seconds from Levi Leipheimer.
Stage five is from Seaside to Paso Robles and is 223.6km long. You can see the stage via our friends at ITV4 or on Eurosport.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM