Hagen Makes Norway Proud!

Norwegian cyclist Edvald Boasson Hagen won today's flat stage, which was the longest stage of this year's Tour de France.  We had a good prediction, as you'll see below.

• Stage 19:  5h 06' 09" (actual), 5h 11' 09" (prediction), 05' 00" slow (1.62% error)

That makes 12 of 19 stages that we've hit better than 3%.  Strategies on long flat stages are hard to predict because the peloton dictates so much of the pacing.  Boasson Hagen and 19 other cyclists came in within two minutes of the winning time.  Chris Froome and the rest of the peloton came in 12' 27" after Boasson Hagen.  I would therefore claim that our prediction was spot on!

Tomorrow's individual time trial will be the last chance Romain Bardet (23 s back) and Rigoberto Urán Urán (29 s back) have of catching Chris Froome.  Below is our prediction.

• Stage 20:  26' 42" (prediction)

We were a bit slow on the first individual time trial, which was the opening stage this year.  I'll be anxious to see if we do a little better tomorrow.