Clarke takes out stage two

Tasmanian Will Clarke has taken out stage two of the Tour Down Under with a daring solo break to claim his first win on the World Tour.

German Martin Kohler of BMC was initially in the breakaway with Clarke and now has the overall race lead having picked up all six bonus points on intermediate sprints during the 149km stage from Lobethal to Stirling near Adelaide.

Kohler leads previous race leader Andre Greipel by two seconds.

UniSA team member Clarke led by as much as 11 minutes, a margin that was reduced to just over one minute at the finish.

Clarke rode solo for over 90 kilometres to lead home the chasing bunch headed by Australian Michael Matthews (Rabobank) and newly crowned Australian road race champion, Simon Gerrans (GreenEDGE) in third.

An ecstatic yet exhausted Clarke could not believe his win.

"This is unbelievable really. This is the biggest win of my career. It's my first win in the World Tour. I knew my form was good," Clarke said.

"He probably thought it was not worth keeping going but the peloton gave me more time and I thought 'you guys have to chase me hard to catch me'. I was dying in the last 10 kilometres," he said of Kohler's decision to drop back to the peloton after the sprints.

New leader Kohler was happy with his day's work, admitting the team's ploys all went to plan.

"It is very cool (to take the lead). We had this little funny plan this morning, just go for it, and I am close on the GC (overall) and I tried again and the first attack was the successful one," Kohler said.