[4] The comfortable margin that Horner and Leipheimer had over the field was due in part from a 1–2 performance on the event's queen stage where they finished over 40 seconds clear of the next placed rider.

International riders like Tour de France runner-up Andy Schleck also entered the event, with the new-for-2011 Leopard Trek outfit.

[8] Leopard Trek's commitment to the race came despite the team's departure from the Giro d'Italia after the death of Wouter Weylandt days before the Tour of California commenced.

[11] Other top international riders included Rabobank's Laurens ten Dam, Garmin–Cervélo's Ryder Hesjedal, and Rory Sutherland of UnitedHealthcare.

[16][17] Minutes prior to the stage start, it was cancelled due to the riders refusing to ride in poor weather conditions.

[3] May 16, 2011 — Nevada City to Sacramento, 76.3 miles (122.8 km) Stage 2 was scheduled to begin at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, go over the 7,000 feet (2,100 m) peak of the Donner Pass, and then descend to the California State Capitol building in Sacramento on largely the same route as the opening stage of the 2010 Tour, which resulted in a sprint for victory, won by Team HTC–Columbia's Mark Cavendish.

[18] However, as a result of the continuing snowy conditions around Lake Tahoe, the organizers moved the start of the stage to Nevada City, where last year's Tour began.

However, their advantage was steadily cut after that, and the quartet were eventually caught as the field entered the outskirts of Sacramento, Jacques-Maynes the last to hold off the pack with around 8 miles (13 km) to the finish.

[22] HTC–Highroad and Saxo Bank–SunGard headed the field as they entered the short finishing circuit, but with rain starting to fall, Team Sky came to the front to assume control for Ben Swift.

[13] Although believing that a sprint finish was the most likely occurrence, Team RadioShack's Chris Horner stated that the stage could be the first opportunity for a breakaway to succeed in Modesto, and that cross winds could also factor into the day's conditions and could split the field.

[25] With 13 miles (21 km), the cross winds that Horner had mentioned occurred, with pressure on the front Team Sky, they broke the field into echelons for a time.

The acceleration caught out many riders, including the likes of Garmin–Cervélo's Thor Hushovd and Leopard Trek's Andy Schleck, but both rejoined when the wind turned to their advantage.

[25][26] As the race headed into Modesto, HTC–Highroad and Liquigas–Cannondale took turns at the front in the hope of preventing a late-race attack, and to help with the eventually sprint for the line after two circuits.

[25] Saxo Bank–SunGard's Juan José Haedo finished second ahead of Hushovd, Sagan and Goss' teammate Leigh Howard.

A ten-man breakaway formed as the race was leaving Livermore, again composed mainly of the domestic teams but three riders from the World Tour teams – Martin Pedersen representing Leopard Trek, Lars Boom of Rabobank and Garmin–Cervélo's Thor Hushovd – also made it into the breakaway, extending an advantage of three minutes before the first climb on Mines Road.

On the descent, Hushovd's teammate Ryder Hesjedal attacked and made headway from the group and was later joined by Rabobank's Paul Martens as they put almost a minute on the pack before Martens overshot a corner and lost time to Hesjedal, who in turn waited for his return prior to the final climb up Sierra Road.

At the top of the final climb, Freire and Leopard Trek's Stefan Denifl attacked from the break and managed to put a gap on them of around 30 seconds.

This gap steadily came down with many teams pushing the pace up to help advance their sprinters, including Liquigas–Cannondale and HTC–Highroad for Peter Sagan, Leigh Howard and Matthew Goss respectively.

Team Sky then placed themselves on the front with Mathew Hayman and Greg Henderson looking to lead out Ben Swift, but Howard gained an advantage on them before Sagan usurped them both to claim his third Tour win, after two in 2010.

[30] Levi Leipheimer was tipped by Team RadioShack teammate Chris Horner to be the favorite for the stage,[38] having won in Solvang in each of the three occasions that it has featured on the Tour, en route to an overall victory each time.

The early pace was set by William Dickeson of Jelly Belly–Kenda, who went round the course in 32' 53", but was usurped by his teammate Bernard van Ulden by half a minute.

Rabobank's Lars Boom had been quicker than van Ulden at the intermediate split but lost time over the second half of the course.

[40] May 21, 2011 — Claremont to Mount Baldy, 74.9 mi (120.5 km) The queen stage of the 2011 Tour saw the riders presented with three climbs in excess of 3,000 feet (910 m), as well as an intermediate sprint in Glendora.

[45] Just like many of the other stages, the American domestic teams had a great presence within the early breakaways which resulted in four riders – Bradley White of UnitedHealthcare, Jan Bárta of Team NetApp, José Fernando Antogna of Jamis–Sutter Home and Mike Friedman of Kelly Benefit Strategies–OptumHealth – heading clear after around 20 miles (32 km).

The breakaway extended out to a maximum of three minutes, and took a clean sweep of the points at the Balcom Canyon climb and the two intermediate sprints in Moorpark and the first pass through the finish line prior to the completion of the five circuits to end the race.

[46] The gap to the four leaders slowly dwindled, and with 18 miles (29 km) to go, Rabobank's Maarten Tjallingii and Leopard Trek's Martin Mortensen escaped from the field and set off in chase of the lead quartet, riding for almost 8 miles (13 km) until they caught the remnants of the breakaway; White had already slid back as would Antogna and Friedman, leaving Barta to partner Tjallingii and Mortensen.

Bernhard Eisel made a mistake in the closing stages which compromised the run-in for HTC–Highroad, leaving the honors to Leigh Howard to pace Matthew Goss for the sprint.

Sagan's second place comfortably confirmed his green jersey for the sprints, while Greg Henderson took third for Team Sky.

[48] In the pack, Team RadioShack were untroubled during the day and Chris Horner sealed the overall classification with a 65th place stage finish, ahead of teammate Levi Leipheimer.

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