Crashes Mar Philipsen's Second Straight Win!

Jasper Philipsen won his second straight Tour de France stage with a great sprint in the final kilometer.  But that final kilometer was marred by a few crashes that took out many of the top sprinters.  Elite cycling can be intense and brutal, as today's finish demonstrated.  Philipsen just edged Caleb Ewan at the finish line.

Now for the comparison between Philipsen's time and our prediction.

• Stage 04:  4h 25' 28" (actual), 4h 06' 01" (prediction), 19' 27" fast (-7.33% fast)

This is our second straight terrible prediction, though yesterday's was due to not having the correct terrain data for the end of the stage.  Today's problem was all about pace.  Halfway into the stage, I could tell we would be much too fast.  I saw this on Cycling News:  "Hopefully the upcoming intermediate sprint will kick the stage into life after a slow day."  Slow is an understatement.  The peloton was moving like molasses today!  Look at the winner's average speed.

• Stage 04:  11.41 m/s (41.09 kph or 25.53 mph)

How slow is that?  Tour de France organizers estimated an average speed range of 43 kph - 47 kph for their time schedules.  I could knock about 18% off my model cyclist's power output and nearly nail today's time.  I've said for years that we cannot predict teams' strategies.  It seems that today was about keeping riders safe while leisurely biking through the south of France.  Only in the final 10 km or so did speeds really kick up.  Oh well, lots to learn from two flat stages that we simply failed to predict well.

Riders hit the Pyrenees tomorrow in this year's first mountain stage.  They begin in Pau and loop around to the southwest before finishing nearly due south of Pau in Laruns.  The 162.7-km (101.1-mi) stage's highlight will be an hors catégorie climb to the 1540-m (5052-ft) peak of Col de Soudet in the middle of the stage.  Our prediction is below.

• Stage 05:  4h 08' 08" (prediction)

I hope we do better in the mountains than we did on the two flat stages!