Mark Cavendish of Columbia-High Road outdueled Big Tom Boonen of Quick Step for the second day in a row in winning Stage 5 Thursday at the Amgen Tour of California.

After a premature celebration and a photo finish in Stage 4, Cavendish won by a good bicycle-length Thursday in Paso Robles after some big work by his team and other sprinters’ teams in reeling in the day’s breakaway.

The breakaway-and-chase is one of the cool things about bicycle racing. The breakaway, however big in terms of the number of riders, gets away from the group on the odd-chance that it will succeed. The peloton lets them get away as teams bicker and barter about which team’s, or teams’, riders will chase it down.

If a rider in the breakaway is a threat for the overall race lead, the team with the yellow jersey typically has to chase it down to keep its man in yellow. If no rider in the break is a threat, then teams with top sprinters do the chasing to set up the sprinters for the stage win.

Sometimes, the break succeeds; more often than not it seems to fail, with the breakaway riders essentially pushing themselves beyond exhaustion for the very slim chance of succeeding. Well, that and to call attention to their team sponsors by sponsors logo in front of television cameras for hours at a time, primarily in Europe where cycling rivals soccer (football) in some areas. But basically, they destroy themselves physically for no good reason.

On Thursday, the day’s six-man breakaway built a lead of nearly 8 minutes after almost 100 miles, but the peloton reeled ‘em in over the last 30-some miles to set up the sprint finish for two of the best in the world in Cavendish and Boonen.

 BMC’s Jeff Louder, OUCH/Maxxis’ Cam Evans, Jelly Belly’s Matt Crane, Rock Racing’s Glen Chadwick, Rabobank’s Pieter Weening and Fly V’s Curtis Gunn got into the break Thursday, with Evans, Chadwick, Weening and Gunn surviving until the last three miles.

“I don’t know how they do it but the ProTour teams always know how to time it,” cycylingnews.com quoted Chadwick as saying.

With the bunch sprint, there was no change in the overall. Astana’s Levi Leipheimer, the two-time defending champion, remained in the yellow jersey, with Michael Rogers of Columbia-High Road 24 seconds back and Columbia-High Road’s David Zabriskie in third, 28 seconds in arrears. Some guy named Lance Armstrong was fourth.

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