IAM Cycling's Mattias Brandle has won his second stage of the Tour Of Britain with victory of stage six but Alex Dowsett of Movistar finished second to take the overall lead of the race.
Michael Kwiatkowski was still in the lead as the race embarged on stage six which was 206.5km stage from Bath to Hemel Hempsted.
Alex Peters of Madison Genesis and Manuel Boaro of Tinkoff Saxo launched an early bid to start a break but they were soon hauled back and two groups formed on the road with the first having a lead of 1.46.
In that group was a number of the GC contenders and it was the race leader who took the first sprint of the day ahead of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Nicholas Roche, who took a second to move up to third on the General Classification.
Then Alex Dowsett, stage five winner Mattias Brandle of IAM Cycling and Tom Stewart of Madison Genesis got away. Going through the feedzone at Hungerford, they were 7.45 ahead and when they came through Wantage, they were 8.30 ahead.
The lead was at 9.11 when Dowsett took the second Yodel Sprint of the stage before the trio set off for the first KOM climb which came after 161kms on Chinnor Hill.
The peloton which has Giant Shimano and Team Sky on the front knocked a minute off the lead of the trip who were going over the Chinnor Hill with a lead of 5.54.
Dowsett took the points ahead of Stewart and the trio cracked on into Princes Risborough where the next sprint was. Dowsett took that uncontested sprint ahead of Brandle and next was the Kop Hill climb.
Again, there was plenty of spectators out on the roads, some of whom saw Dowsett take the climb with 34kms left and a lead of 4.47.
An Post's Mark McNally had also taken points in the climbs and that helped to extend his lead in the King Of The Mountains competition.
The sprint at Chesham was next and Dowsett took the sprint points which meant that he if he could win with a lead of 1.13, the leader's jersey would be his.
Brandle took the final climb of the day at Nashleigh and with just over eleven kilometres to go, the trip had a lead of three minutes.
Seven kilometres later and the lead was 2.17 and race leader Michael Kwiatkowski was on the front of the peloton, trying to claw back some time.
Onto Leighton Buzzard Road and the road to the finish line in Hemel Hempstead and then under the flam rouge, it was out of Dowsett, Brandle and Stewart who would win.
Dowsett was on the front but Brandle went and won in 4.44.49 ahead of Dowsett and Stewart, followed by Colbrelli, Ruffoini, Swift, Kohler, Haussler, Zabel and Veelers 1.51 later, the peloton came home and it was Alex Dowsett who takes over as the race leader with two stages to go, with a 34 second lead over Kwiatkowski.
Source: DSG
