The breakaway included Axel Merckx, who is to his father Eddy, "the cannibal", what Jordi Cruyff is to Johan.
Though the next day featured a change of race leader, when a breakaway including Thomas Voeckler gained almost four minutes against the peloton, Evans remained well-placed in third overall.
However, Contador would fall victim to an ambush on the next stage as several riders in the top ten went into the breakaway including Andrew Talansky, who was just sitting in third place in the GC, 39 seconds behind Contador.
Those breakaways, including Jebb Sinclair of London Irish, Richard Thorpe of London Welsh and the sevens pros Nanyak Dala and John Moonlight, are all good players.
Instead, Cavendish won in a breakaway that included only one sprinting rival, Sagan.
On the first descent, Nibali jumped ahead of Wiggins to join a 17-rider breakaway that included Thomas Voeckler, the stage winner Wednesday.
He leads a breakaway group including Alexandere Pichot, Carlos Barredo (two points), Arnaud Coyot, Fabian Wegmann, Jussi Veikkanen and Fumiyuki Beppu (four points).
Then, the program is used to simulate tethered aerostat breakaway characteristics, including ascent and descent behaviors, flight altitude, flight duration, and the influence of the discharge valve characteristics, ascent velocity and hull volume on the hull overpressure.
The 11-strong breakaway, that included the promising young Briton Alistair Slater, opened up a gap of four minutes at one stage as Sky were left to do the majority of the work on the front of the peloton.
Wiggins stayed near the front of the peloton for most of the stage as the main bunch chased down a 16-man breakaway that included Briton David Millar, winner of stage 12 a week ago, and Team Sky's Edvald Boasson Hagen.
