[2] The Astana team included two-time returning champion Levi Leipheimer, and seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

The sales and hotel taxes generated by drawing tourists at a traditionally slow time of the year were expected to help recover the costs of hosting the event.

A 23-man chase group formed as Mancebo neared Santa Rosa, which included four members of Astana, working for two-time defending race champion Levi Leipheimer, as well as some other overall favorites such as Ivan Basso.

The chase group started out 12 minutes behind Mancebo and closed the time gap to 1'07" at the beginning of the first lap of the Santa Rosa circuit.

They subsequently slowed at the end of the first circuit (since the only thing left to gain was the stage win - the group that was together at the beginning of the first circuit were all given the same finishing time, relative to Mancebo) and allowed some riders to attack, chief among them Vincenzo Nibali and Jurgen Van de Walle, who joined Mancebo at the beginning of the last lap.

[7] After a few unsuccessful breakaway attempts immediately following the neutral zone, Rabobank's Grischa Niermann was the first rider to break free of the peloton.

He was quickly joined by Garmin-Slipstream's Steven Cozza and eight other riders, to form a ten-man break that held a four- to five-minute advantage over the peloton for most of the stage.

When the peloton reached the beginning of the climb of Bonny Doon road, Astana took over the pace, and the time gap to the breakaway fell precipitously.

On their respective ways up the climb, Carlos Barredo attacked from the leading group of ten and Levi Leipheimer from the peloton, each coming free.

End ETA: 3:53–4:55 PM[8] A 4-man breakaway formed immediately after the stage's neutral zone, comprising Bauke Mollema of Rabobank, Jeff Louder of BMC, Bradley White of OUCH, and Brian Vandborg of Liquigas.

King of the Mountains leader Francisco Mancebo joined them shortly thereafter and topped the climb up Sierra Road in first position, padding his lead.

The breakaway's lead extended to nearly six minutes, which was increased partially because Leipheimer crashed at the front of the peloton at about the 30 mile mark causing the Astana-paced bunch to slow to allow him to rejoin them.

The breakaway's biggest advantage was close to six minutes before the peloton, paced chiefly by Team Columbia-High Road, began to chase in earnest, on the descent from the fifth and last climb.

A Rabobank rider attacked with the last half mile but was caught by Mark Cavendish, who launched his sprint early but held on in a photo finish for the stage win.

After five miles, a six-man breakaway formed, that was eventually whittled to four: Matthew Crane, Glen Chadwick, Pieter Weening, and Cameron Evans.

Yellow jersey wearer and two-time defending Tour of California and Solvang time trial champion Levi Leipheimer was the last man to take the course.

On the descent of the one climb of the day, King of the Mountains leader Francisco Mancebo clipped a small rock and tumbled off his bike, suffering a concussion and elbow and hand fractures, which forced him to abandon the race and surrender the KOM lead to Jason McCartney.

Jason McCartney joined a three-man break that came free of the peloton almost immediately and topped the first two of four categorized climbs on the course in first position, assuring his victory in the King of the Mountains classification.

Numerous splits occurred going up the mammoth Mount Palomar climb, with race leader Levi Leipheimer isolated from his teammates at one point, for the first and only time in the Tour, as he had to answer attacks from David Zabriskie and Michael Rogers.

Four riders came clear and were in the lead approaching the last climb of the day - Vincenzo Nibali, Fränk Schleck, Bauke Mollema, and Glen Chadwick.

The chase from the Astana-led group proved too slow to catch Nibali and Schleck, and they were able to survive to finish and contest the stage win between themselves.

For the general classification, calculated by adding the finishing times of the stages per cyclist, the leader received a yellow jersey.