In yesterday's tough stage of the Tour of California, Taylor Phinney stole all the headlines but earlier in the day Jens Voigt had try to make a move very similar move to the American's. However, the German failed to do what his younger rival did and he jokingly wrote it down to the BMC rider's younger legs.

It was one of these attacks, by BMC’s Taylor Phinney, that one day would prove successful. Phinney, a renowned time trialist, rode off the front with over 20 km to go and immediately opened up a gap. The young American managed to hold off the chasing field until the line in Santa Barbara.

Danny Van Poppel spent the day in the break, together with Michael Schär, Maarten Wynants, Isaac Bolivar, Iker Ortuzar and Serghei Tvetcov. 

“It was my very first time in a breakaway since I turned pro. It was interesting. I’m a sprinter, so I’m not usually one to go in an early attack. But this was a good learning experience. The San Marco pass may have been too hard for me anyhow.”

As the gap to the six riders steadily decreased under the charges of Cannondale, Jens Voigt attacked the field with 33 km to go.

“It was more or less clear that sprinter teams, especially Peter Sagan’s squad, wanted a sprint of a small group," he said. "I wanted to jump across to Danny’s group, recover for a bit, and then go again. What I had in mind was more or less what Taylor Phinney pulled off. But he’s ‘only’ 20 years younger and had definitely better legs than I did. The plan was clear in the head, but the body just didn’t follow.”

With Phinney out of reach, the field sprinted for second place. Jasper Stuyven managed to take third in the bunch kick.

“The whole time up the climb I was saying to myself: ‘You can do this. You’ve done this climb before!’ There was a headwind, so they didn’t go that hard in the end. After the descent, Haimar brought me to front and delivered me to Sagan’s wheel. I’m happy with the result. Without Phinney’s cunning plan, I could have done third, which would have been even better!”