The stage began with an neutralised section, which included a loop around the town centre; the racing started as the riders headed east for towards Market Weighton. Here they turned south and climbed the first of the day's two categorised climbs; this was the Côte de North Newbald ( at 5.3%). The route again turned east and the riders reached Beverley after . From here the route turned north and entered the Yorkshire Wolds; there was an intermediate sprint as the route passed through Wetwang. Immediately after the intermediate sprint came the second climb of the day, the Côte de Fimber ( at 6.2%). At the summit of the climb, there were to the finish line. The riders continued north as far as Malton, then turned south-west towards York. The race concluded in York with a finishing circuit. The riders entered the circuit with to the end of the stage and rode the to the finishing line, where the second intermediate sprint of the day took place. They then rode two complete laps of the circuit; the race finished with the third crossing of the finish line, after . An early breakaway of 18 riders formed. This included Philip Deignan (), who had been in the winning break in the first stage and was 10 seconds off the race lead. The other teams in the peloton were not willing to let a breakaway that included Deignan go; eventually he and nine others dropped back to the main peloton. Eight riders were therefore left in the lead group: Andy Tennant (), Bert De Backer (), Stijn Steels (), Giovanni Bernaudeau (), Matt Brammeier (), Nicolas Edet (), Ivar Slik () and Mark McNally (). McNally won both categorised climbs. The break's lead was nearly seven minutes with remaining; Sky and began chasing hard and reduced the gap sharply; the breakaway had less than two minutes' lead as they entered the laps around York. The breakaway split up; McNally and De Backer remained alone in the lead with left. McNally was voted as the day's most combative rider through a Twitter vote, but he was unable to stay with De Backer in the final . De Backer continued alone; he was briefly joined by Loic Chetout () but the pair were unable to stay away from the chasing pack. As they were caught, with remaining, Greg Van Avermaet attacked. Although he appeared to have a lead large enough to secure the stage victory, he ran out of energy shortly before the line and was caught by the sprinters.