Having played too much with the muscles in the first mountain stage of the Tour of California, Bradley Wiggins rode a much smarter race in yesterday's mountain stage of the Tour of California. Having used his strong team to control the many Garmin attacks, he briefly faked that he was dead before riding key rival Rohan Dennis off his wheel in the finale.

Team Sky and Bradley Wiggins rose to the occasion on a pivotal sixth stage at the Tour of California to defend the race lead.

The Brit was supported across the entire 156.1-kilometre test by his team-mates as they set about controlling the day’s breakaway and setting a solid tempo on the arduous Mountain High summit finish.

Fifth across the line, Wiggins rode chief rival Rohan Dennis (Garmin-Sharp) off his wheel in the final metres to extend his lead by two seconds on the toughest stage of the race, taking a large step towards overall victory in the process.

Joe Dombrowski produced one of the strongest rides of his pro career to support Wiggins until deep on the final climb. The American teamed up with Josh Edmondson to keep the pace high in a bid to stave off attacks from an ever-dwindling pack of contenders behind.

Eventually it was up to Wiggins and the yellow jersey ably drove for the line, finishing 53 seconds back on solo stage victor Johan Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge), but more crucially opening out his lead to 30 seconds with two stages remaining.

“Everyone in the break was dangerous, it wasn’t an ideal breakaway today so we had to ride straight from the start and make sure they didn’t get too much time,” Wiggins said. “It was quite dangerous.

“I just faked that I was a bit dead for minute to get Pete [Stetina] to attack, and that just finished Pete off. After that, I knew I could wind it up to the line. It was a little bit of tactical bluffing, and it worked.
 

“The whole team all day really, once again, the guys rode all day to keep the break at four minutes and then on the last climb, everyone from Danny Pate, Christian Knees, and then Joe at the end there. It was an incredible team effort throughout the day to put me in that position in the final kilometer to wind out the legs.

“The job’s not done. We’re 90 percent there, and just get through the next few days and just focus again and get the job done.”

“The whole team rode incredibly well today," Sports Director Kurt-Asle Arvesen announced.

“We stayed calm and controlled the stage once the break went away. Everyone gave such a huge contribution and Brad was strong enough to finish it all off at the end.

“The plan was to monitor things at the beginning. A big group went which we had under control and then the move that stuck was just a result of a really hard start. It was the strong guys who got away but the team never panicked and just got to work.”

Despite a great result, two stages still separate Wiggins from glory, with Arvesen hinting the Thousand Oaks finale certainly has the potential to hold a sting in the tail.

“I don’t think we should underestimate the last day,” he added. “It’s a circuit race and we do the climb three times. It’s a hard race to control and we don’t take anything for granted. We just need to stay focused, recover and get through tomorrow, which will also be tough to control.”