The 2013 Tour de France placement of riders on a stage-by-stage basis.

The 2013 Placement Vortex shows the placement of each rider in relation to the grey Point d’Appui winner, Manuel Quinziato. The finishing colors simply help differentiate each block of 10 riders, from first place at the top to 169th place at the bottom, except that the middle tan color is nine riders, including the Point d’Appui.

The heavier black lines denote riders who eventually abandoned the race, eventually leaving only 169 riders to finish, hence the slow narrowing of the field from left to right. Track the yellow line of Christopher Froome at top, the red lantern line of Svein Tuft at bottom, or the plain gray line of Manuel Quinziato, who finished at the center of the peloton.

The first stage on Corsica finished with the entire peloton coming to the stage finish together and thus receiving the same time. Their individual placement, however, was happenstance for the most part, save the sprinters who wanted the stage win. On the more rugged Stage 2, many of the sprinters fell back and the GC contenders moved up, creating a chaotic leap in many of the placements.

The Team Time Trial of Stage 4 catapulted a few riders into higher placement while others fell as a result of their team’s ability. Then, except for the effect of crashes, placement began to consolidate until the entry of the peloton into the Pyrenees, when the chart was thrown into the “jackstraws.” As might be expected, the climbers moved up in placement while the sprinters fell.

Again, the graph shows that placement turned to relatively static strata during the flat stages through Brittany as well as the route south across the Loire River Valley and toward the Alps. An exception is that heavy cross winds splintered the peloton on Stage 13 and sent the graphic back into the “jackstraws.”

Although the mid-Alps individual time trial changed placement much, the rest of the Alps wreaked havoc on placement with some riders gaining more than 40 spots.

Download a PDF of the 2013 Tour de France Placement Vortex courtesy of Point d’Appui.