Groenewegen (Good!) and Our Model (Bad!) Go Back-to-Back

Dylan Groenewegen won his second straight Tour de France stage today.  And for the second straight day, I was watching the race and wondering when the pace was going to pick up.  Yesterday, a cyclist would leave the peloton, but nobody would follow.  The peloton looked just as sluggish again today.  The only exciting part of the stage was the final sprint.  Check out the screen capture I got (click on the image for a larger view).

André Greipel is in red and Fernando Gaviria is in blue in the back.  Peter Sagan is on the left in green.  Both Greipel and Gaviria got relegated by the judges after some head-butting.  Sagan ended up with yet another second place.

Our model should be relegated after today's stage!  We did worse than yesterday.

• Stage 08:  4h 23' 36" (actual), 3h 59' 44" (prediction), 23' 52" fast (-9.05% error)

Groenewegen averaged a rather pedestrian 41.20 kph (25.60 mph).  The time schedule on the Tour de France's website had 44 kph as its slowest projection.  I'm sure there were fans along the route who were wondering when the bloody peloton was going to reach them!  Other than teams' strategies, I don't have a good explanation for the slow speeds over the past two stages.  When I watched yesterday, I'd see someone leave the peloton, but nobody would go after him.  Teams seemed content to go with the flow of the peloton.  We'd have to cut approximately 20% off our power to match the times of Stages 7 and 8.  There is no way we can know that at the start of the Tour de France!

I hope there is faster racing for tomorrow's Stage 9.  Taking place in the north of France, the 156.5-km (97.2-mi) flat stage begins in Arras Citadelle and ends in Roubaix near the Belgian border.  The stage is short compared to the last two and a rest day follows.  Surely teams will push more with the rest day coming.  Our model's prediction is given below.

• Stage 09:  3h 27' 37" (prediction)

More than seeing my model come through, I want to see some fast cycling, despite the 15 sections of cobblestones!