About CyclingOracle

CyclingOracle.com is created by two cycling-addicts Tom Nederend (@TomNederend) and Arjan Zoer (@ZoerCyclingStat), who found each other in their shared passion for cycling. This same passion is shared with Daniël Herbers (@StatsOnCycling), Thomas Zwetsloot (@zwetmas) and Stef van Zon (@stefvanzon), who joined the team and together invest a lot of their free time in making content for the website and developing the computer algorithm that predicts professional cycling races.

Computer-model of CyclingOracle.com

Arjan Zoer is the mastermind behind the smart computer-algorithm. Arjan developed the model and is working on improvements of the model on a daily basis. We will not share the depths of the model publically, but can give some insight in how it works. The model is based on results of riders in the past 3 seasons in which more recent results have a larger impact on the outcome. The model runs for all male and female riders in all UCI-races. That’s a lot of data. The result of a race, combined with the profile, quality of the startlist and the UCI-classification of the race, determines on which skills a rider gets awarded how many ‘points’. Riders score points between 20 and 100 on 13 different skills (categories), being: sprint, flat, mountain, hills, time-trial, ITT-long, ITT-short, prologue, cobbles, leadout, GC, one-day races and stage-races. In addition, a rider gets points for his current shape (good results in recent races).

Some examples:

• A rider wins a bunch sprint in Tour de Rwanda. He gets points awarded for ‘flat’ and ‘sprint’, but these points will make less of a difference compared to a bunch sprint-victory in the Tour de France given the UCI-classification of the race (2.1) and weak field of participants.
• A rider wins a bunch sprint in the Giro d’Italia and his teammates get rewarded points for ‘leadout'. If teammates of a sprinter have a lot of leadout-points, the computer lifts the chances of a sprinter to win a flat race which is likely to result in a bunch sprint. Team-quality is part of the model.
• A rider solos to victory in Ronde van Vlaanderen: the rider gets rewarded a mix of points on skills like ‘cobbles’, ‘hills’, ‘one-day races’ and ‘time-trial’.
• A rider wins the sprint of a small-group at a summit-finish of Alpe d’Huez. He gets points for ‘mountain’, but also for ‘sprint’ and ‘stage-races’. Moreover, these points will weigh heavily on a rider’s shape or form in order to predict future results in the same race better.

All these skills will be used to predicted a cycling race. Depending on the profille and field of participants, the computer predicts the most likely winner. The probability a certain rider will win the race is called ‘Expected Win’.

How to find CyclingOracle.com

WielerOrakel.nl can be found at Twitter, Instagram and YouTube named @wielerorakel. Further the ‘WielerOrakel podcast’ is our most important media outlet, you can listen to us in your favourite podcast-app. In the WielerOrakel podcast, cycling-addicts Tom and Thomas rejoice about the upcoming cycling races. They will be joined by several others, like data-mastermind Arjan Zoer, stat-expert Daniël and other guests from the cycling community. They elaborate on and discuss the predictions by the computer model.

Cycling Oracle Cycling Quiz

Every year the Cycling Oracle Cycling Quiz is organised in Café Scheltema in Leiden (NL). Cycling-lovers from several countries gather to fight for the Challenge Cup and several other prizes. Follow us on Twitter to know more about the quiz.

Collaboration with CyclingOracle.com?

Do you want to sponsor us of collaborate with CyclingOracle.com? Let us know by sending an e-mal to [email protected] and we will get in touch to explore the possibilities. That’s it for now, see you later.