Cycling Update Tour de France Stage 13, or Five Guys Showed up Ready to Race Today

The entire peloton missed the cutoff time today, and, in theory, could all be eliminated from the Tour. They let an escape group of five get away to the tune of 29 minutes 57 seconds! Good thing there’s that little clause in the rules stating “If the percentage of eliminated riders rises above 20% of starters in the stage, permitted finishing times may be increased upon the decision of the stewards committee, with the agreement of the race management.” Somehow I think race management will agree.

This happened in 2001 as well; in that stage the break group was 18 riders (I think) and finished a whopping thirty five minutes and fifty four seconds ahead of the main group.

Each stage has a permitted finishing time calculated according to that day’s stage difficulty and average speed. For the 13th stage the formula was the winner’s actual finishing time plus:
4% if the average speed is less than or equal to 34km/h
5% between 34 km/h and 36 km/h
6% between 36 km/h and 38 km/h
7% between 38 km/h and 40 km/h
8% between 40 km/h and 42 km/h
9% between 42 km/h and 44 km/h
10% between 44 km/h and 46 km/h
11% between 46 km/h and 48 km/h
12% over 48 km/h

Jens Voigt of CSC won the stage at 5h24m36sec with an average speed of 42.51 km/h, so if I’ve got my math right the cutoff time was 5h53m36sec. The peloton came in a minute too slow at 5h54m33sec.