The Pocket Rocket Wins a SLOW Stage!

Australia's Caleb Ewan out-sprinted Sam Bennett to the finish line to win today's third stage of the Tour de France.  The screen capture I got below shows just how narrow Ewan's win was today.

I was teaching all morning and missed most of the stage.  I had to watch good chunks of the replay later in the day.  What was going on today?!?  The peloton moved like molasses in sand!  Were cyclists tired after such an early trek into the Alps in yesterday's stage?  Were they saving energy for later stages?  I don't know the answer, but as I watched the replay, I kept thinking to myself, "We are going to be much too fast today!"  Look at how our prediction fared.

• Stage 03:  5h 17' 42" (actual), 4h 50' 26" (prediction), 27' 16" fast (-8.58% error)

Yeesh.  Ewan's average speed is even more telling.

• Stage 03:  10.39 m/s (37.39 kph or 23.24 mph)

Even the Tour de France organizers would think that average speed to be quite low.  The organizers' time schedule estimated average speeds would have been in the range 38 kph - 42 kph.  Whatever the reason, our model was too fast!

Tomorrow's 160.5-km (99.7-mi) medium mountain Stage 4 picks up in Sisteron and takes riders north to the ski resort at Orcières-Merlette in the Alps.  Cyclists will be biking mostly uphill during the stage, and they'll contend with a 7.1-km (4.4-mi) category-1 climb to finish the stage.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 04:  4h 09' 28" (prediction)

Will cyclists repeat today's slow pace or will the climbers force the action to be much faster?  It will be fun to watch!

Alaphilippe Puts France in Yellow!

Just as he did last in stage 3 of last year's Tour de France, Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe grabbed the yellow jersey early in this year's race.  On a positively gorgeous day in the Alps and in Nice, Alaphilippe held on in the final sprint as the peloton was closing in.  Check out his narrow win over Swiss cyclist, Marc Hirschi, in the screen capture I grabbed.

Our prediction was once again quite good!  See the comparison below.

• Stage 02:  4h 55' 27" (actual), 4h 47' 38" (prediction), 07' 49" fast (-2.65% error)

The two big climbs were grueling.  After four decades of not having mountain climbs this early in the race, I'm definitely happy with our prediction!

Check out Alaphilippe's average speed below.

• Stage 02:  10.49 m/s (37.77 kph or 23.47 mph)

Alaphilippe was in yellow for 14 stages last year.  How many stages will see him in yellow this year?  The French will be rooting for him to finish the entire race in yellow!

Tomorrow' third stage is classified as flat, but cyclists will do some climbing, including three category-3 climbs and a short category-4 climb.  The 198-km (123-mi) stage takes riders from Nice northwest to the commune of Sisteron.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 03:  4h 50' 26" (prediction)

I hope we can stay under 3% error!

Rain, Crashes, and a Great Sprint!

Setting aside the pandemic, the first stage of this year's Tour de France was far from ideal.  Rain made for slick roads.  Several crashes happened, and some were tough to watch.  Cyclists had to neutralize at one point.  The elite general classification contenders appeared to be protected by their teams as racing conditions got more dangerous.  All of the problems riders faced on the day did not prevent a great sprint to the finish.  Teams were able to get their sprinters in position as the peloton got into the beautiful city of Nice.  I managed to get the screen capture below just as the powerful Norwegian sprinter Alexander Kristoff crossed the finish line.

You can see Kristoff finishing just ahead of the Danish cyclist, Mads Pedersen.

The rain and crashes had me thinking our prediction would be much too fast.  But the teams' desires to get sprinters in position made for fast racing in Nice.  Below is Kristoff's winning time and a comparison with our prediction.

• Stage 01:  3h 46' 23" (actual), 3h 41' 53" (prediction), 04' 30" fast (-1.99% error)

I'll definitely take an error just under 2% on a stage like today's, and in the bizarre environment of this year's postponed race.  Check out Kristoff's average speed below.

• Stage 01:  11.48 m/s (41.35 kph or 25.69 mph)

Tomorrow's second stage will be the first foray into the mountains so early in the Tour de France in four decades.  Cyclists will once again begin and end in Nice with a loop to the north, but unlike today, tomorrow's stage will have them climbing in the Alps.  Two big category-1 climbs will dominate the first half of the 186-km (116-mi) medium mountain stage, the second of which has riders crossing the 1607-km (5272-ft) peak of Col de Turini.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 02:  4h 47' 38" (prediction)

How will sprinters fare in the mile-high air?  Will today's crash victims recover well enough to compete strongly tomorrow?  Tomorrow's stage will surely influence the general classification battle.  It will be fun to watch!

Tour de France -- 2020 Style

I doubt too many people will remember 2020 as their favorite year.  The global pandemic has taken lives and altered what most people think of as a "normal" life.  The sports world has been rocked by the pandemic, too.  From March Madness being canceled to my Vandy baseball team being denied a chance to repeat as champs to the Indy 500 being run in August, nothing about sports feels normal.

The 2020 Tour de France had to be postponed from its normal hold on the month of July to a late August start.  This year's Tour de France will take place before the Giro d'Italia.  How will cyclists perform in the 107th Tour de France in such a crazy year?  How will redesigned training schedules and what could only be strained personal lives affect what we cycling fans see once racing commences?  There won't likely be fake fans as in baseball, but we may not see the large crowds we are used to seeing on the big climbs and at finish lines.

I'm anxious to see how my research group's model performs this year.  With so much uncertainty surrounding the months that led to this day before the Tour de France begins, it's impossible to predict how well our model will do this year.  Will cyclists be rested and faster than usual?  Will they be so unaccustomed to the late August start that racing will be slow?  I certainly don't know.  But I'm excited to watch some elite cycling!

Stage 1 begins tomorrow in the southeastern French coastal city of Nice.  The 156-km (96.9-mi) stage has riders looping up north before returning to Nice for the flat sprint to the finish.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 01:  3h 41' 53" (prediction)

Noah Baumgartner, a third-year physics major here at the University of Lynchburg, joins me again this year in modeling the Tour de France.  We don't have a "pandemic" parameter for our computer model!  I only hope that once the stage begins, the cyclists once again show us what the best of the best can do.