Wout van Aert won his second stage of this year's Tour de France today. He may have finished just ahead of the sprinters today, but almost all of the cyclists set a torrid pace through the stage. Crosswinds blew up the peloton with about a quarter of the stage left to ride. The lead group continued the fast pace, but the second group lagged a bit. As the sprinters approached the finish line, speeds of 64 kph (40 mph) were reached. Check out the close finish.
Van Aert is in yellow, and he knew he had won about a metre before the finish line. We had our worst prediction today. Check it out.
- Stage 07: 3h 32" 03" (actual), 3h 57' 13" (prediction), 25' 10" slow (11.87% error)
Ouch! Not even when Ben Hannas and I first began this area of research in 2003 would an error that large have been acceptable. Look at va Aert's average speed.
- Stage 07: 13.20 m/s (47.54 kph or 29.54 mph)
I simply can't believe that average speed. Even the Tour de France organizers put their upper limit at 45 kph on their time schedule. I hope nobody was late getting to a spot to watch the race. Cyclists would have been long gone if someone cut it too close. As always, I'll have to look at this stage in much greater detail once the race is over. Next year's model, like every year's model, will need some adjustment.
I will not be able to watch the next two stages as they happen. I'll have to watch them on replay, hopefully Sunday night. I'm anxious to watch Stages 8 and 9, both mountain stages in the Pyrenees. But I'll be busy with other goodies this weekend. I'm even pressed for time getting this blog post written and posted. I regret that I'll have to skip my usual stage descriptions and just offer our predictions for the next two stages.
- Stage 08: 3h 44' 26" (prediction)
- Stage 09: 3h 51' 01" (prediction)
Speeds will obviously come down in the mountains, but if cyclists perform like they did yesterday and today, we'll be too slow. I'm rooting for how we did on Stage 4!
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