Average Speeds

Here are the average speeds for the winners of the first seven stages of the Tour de France:

• Stage 1:  11.34 m/s (25.4 mph)
• Stage 2:  15.17 m/s (33.9 mph)
• Stage 3:  11.77 m/s (26.3 mph)
• Stage 4:  11.42 m/s (25.5 mph)
• Stage 5:  12.58 m/s (28.1 mph)
• Stage 6:  12.04 m/s (26.9 mph)
• Stage 7:  10.72 m/s (24.0 mph)

Stage 2's team time trial clearly has the largest average speed.  Today's Stage 7 has the smallest average speed.  As I wrote in my last post, I'm surprised that my prediction for such a flat stage was 8% too fast.  My colleague, Ben Hannas, suggests that riders might have been saving a little energy for the big climb awaiting them in Stage 8.  That's a great suggestion!  That's also not something I programmed into my computer code.  It's tough to program human psychology!