OP
OP
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Post edited due to finding a bug. It's changed, but not substantially. If you want to see the (wrong) original @matticus has quoted it below.
In response to massive public clamour demanding more graphs, I have reluctantly agreed to provide some.
This time some distributions. They are almost interesting.
What I did, for each year, was to chop up the time between first and last finisher into 20 equal buckets. I then counted how many riders were in each bucket. Doing it this way meant I could combine years to get a kind of average distribution. It may or may not be statistically valid, I don't know but it makes pretty graphs.
Bucket 1 on the right is the bucket containing the winner, and 21 on the left contains the lanterne rouge.
In 1974-86 it's broadly symmetrical. There are lots of medium riders, a few fast ones and a few slow ones. The commonest bucket is right in the middle, number 10. It almost looks like a "bell curve" from a stats textbook,
In 1987-99 the bulge shifts a bit to the left. The commonest bucket is 14. There's also the beginnings of a second hump appearing around bucket 3. So there seems to be one distribution containing the GC contenders over on the right, centred around 3, and another containing everyone else over on the left.
In 2000-2012 this trend continues. The elite group is becoming more defined and shifting right and the commonest buckets are 15-17. There are fewer riders in the valley between the two humps.
In 2013-25 this is consolidated. There are more riders in the commonest buckets. Bucket 16 is up from 7% to 8%. There are even fewer in the "valley" of around bucket 5, and the peak of the elite riders has moved further right to bucket 1.
I think this shows the emergence of a two-speed race, with fewer and fewer elite GC contenders battiling it out over on the right, and more and more riders joining the bulge, which is moving to the left.
What does this tell us about doping? I have no idea. But it's interesting, innit?
And finally, here is the weird monstrosity that is the distribution for 2025 alone.
Jeez! What's going on here? The bulge has lurched so hard to the left it has splatted against the wall. A whole 10% of the race are clinging on at the back in the grupetto bucket, no 20. The Lanterne Rouge is being fiercely contended! Then there's the "everybody else" hump at 14. Then it sort of fizzles out until we get to the elite distribution, sort of centred around bucket no 2.
I have absolutely no idea what that means. Not a clue.
Here's a kind of animation of everything sloshing to the left over the past 4 years.
In response to massive public clamour demanding more graphs, I have reluctantly agreed to provide some.
This time some distributions. They are almost interesting.
What I did, for each year, was to chop up the time between first and last finisher into 20 equal buckets. I then counted how many riders were in each bucket. Doing it this way meant I could combine years to get a kind of average distribution. It may or may not be statistically valid, I don't know but it makes pretty graphs.
Bucket 1 on the right is the bucket containing the winner, and 21 on the left contains the lanterne rouge.
In 1974-86 it's broadly symmetrical. There are lots of medium riders, a few fast ones and a few slow ones. The commonest bucket is right in the middle, number 10. It almost looks like a "bell curve" from a stats textbook,
In 1987-99 the bulge shifts a bit to the left. The commonest bucket is 14. There's also the beginnings of a second hump appearing around bucket 3. So there seems to be one distribution containing the GC contenders over on the right, centred around 3, and another containing everyone else over on the left.
In 2000-2012 this trend continues. The elite group is becoming more defined and shifting right and the commonest buckets are 15-17. There are fewer riders in the valley between the two humps.
In 2013-25 this is consolidated. There are more riders in the commonest buckets. Bucket 16 is up from 7% to 8%. There are even fewer in the "valley" of around bucket 5, and the peak of the elite riders has moved further right to bucket 1.
I think this shows the emergence of a two-speed race, with fewer and fewer elite GC contenders battiling it out over on the right, and more and more riders joining the bulge, which is moving to the left.
What does this tell us about doping? I have no idea. But it's interesting, innit?
And finally, here is the weird monstrosity that is the distribution for 2025 alone.
Jeez! What's going on here? The bulge has lurched so hard to the left it has splatted against the wall. A whole 10% of the race are clinging on at the back in the grupetto bucket, no 20. The Lanterne Rouge is being fiercely contended! Then there's the "everybody else" hump at 14. Then it sort of fizzles out until we get to the elite distribution, sort of centred around bucket no 2.
I have absolutely no idea what that means. Not a clue.
Here's a kind of animation of everything sloshing to the left over the past 4 years.
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