Ian Stannard admitted his disappointment after the strong breakaway group he helped form failed to stay away to the end of the men’s World Championship road race in the United States.
Stannard attacked with 35km of the 259.2km race remaining and was subsequently joined by defending champion Michal Kwiatkowski, Tom Boonen, Elia Viviani, Daniel Moreno, Andrey Amador and Bauke Mollema.
They built up a lead of more than 30 seconds, but the sprint teams of Germany and Australia stepped up the chase and caught the escapees with just over 16km to go.
Peter Sagan went on to win the race solo, with Stannard having to settle for 51st and Ben Swift finishing as the best-placed Briton in 22nd.
Stannard told britishcycling.org.uk: "It was quite obvious it was going to end up in a sprint so I just wanted to kind of break it up a bit earlier.
"It was a strong group that went with Boonen and Kwiatkowski and myself. We all thought we had a bit of a chance and really committed. But the sprint teams really wanted it as well."
Sagan claimed victory by attacking on the penultimate climb of the race and then holding on over the remaining 2.8km to beat Michael Matthews into second place and Ramunas Navardauskas into third.
Swift had been Britain's lead rider and although he finished in the main bunch three seconds behind Sagan, he was disappointed with the outcome.
He said: "I just gave it everything on that climb to follow the guys there and then I just didn't have anything left for that finish. Once we got onto the top and everyone started to sprint, I just didn't have anything left.
"The team rode pretty well together. I just wasted a lot of energy. I got caught up in a crash through one of the feeds and had to make a big effort to come back - that was about six laps to go."
"I had good legs but I missed it on that very last bit. Maybe I should have stayed in the group up that final climb instead of trying to follow guys like [Tom] Dumoulin and people like that. But I just followed the wheels and it is what it is."