Etixx Quick Step's Petr Vakoc has won the second stage of the Tour Of Britain and takes over as the race leader.
A second stage from Clitheroe to Colne saw Ian Bibby take the first KOM points on a 163km stage.
Pim Ligthart of Lotto Soudal took the first sprint of the day before Moreno Hofland abandoned after he and and his teammate Brian Bulgac crashed on the decent of the Nick'o'Pendle category one climb, watched by big crowds.
Mark McNally took that climb and after twenty eight kilometres, the first real break of the stage came together. It was a two man break involving Ruben Zepuntke (TCG) and Peter Williams (ONE).
Williams, the stage one Combativity award winner, who was on the podium in RideLondon, decided that he did not fancy any company and went off on a loan break, getting 4.20 ahead of the peloton which included race leader Elia Viviani of Team Sky, who has a four second lead over Mark Cavendish, who was the best British rider on stage one.
Movistar's British rider Alex Dowsett came up to join Pete Williams and with 88kms to go, they were 3.56 ahead.
Team Sky took to the front of the peloton with Andy Fenn pulling out some big turns to reduce the gap to 1.15, thirteen kilometres later.
Pete Williams took the second sprint to put him in the sprint jersey after Dowsett dropped back to the peloton. Koen Bouwman took his place on the front with Williams.
Bouwman got past Williams, who was then swept up by the peloton on the foot of the next climb att Bleara Moor.
His lead did not last for long as Ian Bibby of NFTO was first over the summit to take the points.
Hugh Carthy of the GB team put in an attack with just over fifty kilometres to go and plenty of riders were forced to follow this talented rider and he was pulled back before BMC's Stefan Kueng and then Chris Anker Sorensen before a group of eight riders in Wyss, Peters, Stybar, Vakoc, Poels, Fernandez, Powels,Ligthart took over.
Onto the Pendle Big End climb and this group of eight had a lead of forty seconds.
Ligthart took the sprint points in Clitheroe with just over twenty five kilometres to go to take his tally of bonus seconds for the day up to eight but the gap to the chasing group was now down to 35 seconds.
Pete Williams took the one point to keep the lead in the sprint competition as Vakoc split this group of eight and went away taking a five second lead with eighteen kilometres left.
With Alex Peters dropped, five riders were chasing Petr Vakoc as behind him what remained of the peloton caught up to those who had been in the break. Back down the road and the race leader was now eight minutes behind.
Vakoc of Etixx Quick Step, extended his lead to forty seconds on the descent before the climb up to Colne started.It dropped to fifteen kilometres as Vakoc got onto the roads used in the Colne Grand Prix race. Roders tried to chase but Petr Vakoc took the win in 4.02.21 ahead of Lobato of Movistar and Edvald Boasson Hagen of MTN Qhubeka, followed by Guldhammer, Trentin, Doull, Debusschere, Teuns and Gorka Izaguirre.
Vakoc leads the race by eleven seconds from Lobato and Owain Douell is the best British rider.
Source: DSG
