Tour of California 2014 - Stage 7

The seventh stage of the 2014 Tour of California was one of conservation and protection for the race leader Bradley Wiggins after his impressive performance on Mountain High saw him retain the golden jersey of race leader. Despite some tricky climbs in the middle of the stage, the finish was flat, and it was seen as an opportunity for the more punchy sprinters, namely Mr California himself, Peter Sagan.

The obilgatory breakaway went away on the stage, and it contained a few big names. This year's runner up at the Tour of Flanders Greg Van Avermaet was present, along with Garmin-Sharp's Ben King, Chad Haga of Giant-Shimano, Lars Boom of Belkin, Luis Davila of Jelly Belly, Isaac Bolivar of UnitedHealthcare and Jamis Hagens-Berman's Eloy Tereul.

Cannondale and Sky were the key teams working to chase down the breakaway, and so the move didn't really ever get going. As their lead ducked under two minutes for the first time the break started attacking each other. Bolivar went, but by the time the breakaway had descended from the climbs down into the finishing circuit in Pasadena, just Van Avermaet and King were clear.

The peloton had travelled 142.8 kilometres from Santa Clarita to Pasadena, so it was a shorter stage, but there was hot weather so it was still hard work for all the riders. Once the finishing circuit had been reached Van Avermaet and King yielded, but the finish soon got hectic. Tereul attacked from the peloton once again, and came in to finishing straight thinking he'd won, he was just a lap early.

He celebrated, but it was premature, as the peloton rushed past him to contest the real stage finish. When the race came back around there was no mistake from Peter Sagan, who comfortably won the sprint against the former world champion, and now Norweigian champion Thor Hushovd. Wiggins finished safely in the peloton to protect his lead going into the final day.