It's Groenewegen by a Nose!

Dylan Groenewegen has definitely put his Stage-1 crash behind him.  He looked great on the final sprint, just edging ahead of Caleb Ewan.  Check out how close the finish was (click on image for a larger view).

That's Groenewegen on the right in yellow and black; Ewan is on the left in red and white.  Peter Sagan is in the middle; he came in third.

And now we come to our prediction.  I began watching the stage early this morning, hoping our prediction would be as good as yesterday's.  But then the racing turned out to be very pedestrian, sluggish, in fact.  Narrow roads squeezed the peloton in many places, but the riders simply looked content to take it easy on today's longest stage.  As the stage went on, I realized we were in for a terrible prediction today.

• Stage 07:  6h 02' 44" (actual), 5h 21' 48" (prediction), 40' 56" fast (-11.28% error)

This is, by far, our worst prediction of the race.  And it came after nearly being perfect yesterday!  Such are the vicissitudes of predicting the Tour de France.  Check out Groenewegen's average speed.

• Stage 07:  10.57 m/s (38.04 kph or 23.64 mph)

That's 2 kph slower than what race organizers thought would be the slowest average speed.  I'm sure fans on the sides of the roads were anxiously awaiting the peloton to come by, albeit later than they expected.  Did yesterday's grueling Stage 6 zap the riders' legs?  Most likely so.  We need to do better in the future anticipating such drop-off in performance after especially difficult stages.

Tomorrow's Stage 8 commences in Mâcon and takes riders 200 km (124 mi) south to Saint-Étienne.  The hilly stage has two category-3 climbs and five category-2 climbs.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 08:  4h 55' 42" (prediction)

We have the correct physics in our model, but we need to do better anticipating strategies.  We nailed it yesterday, but then botched it today.  What will tomorrow bring?