The Tour de France routes for 2026 are out and here is a stage-by-stage look at the course for the men. It runs between Saturday 4 July and Sunday 26 July.
Stage 1 is a 19km team time trial in Barcelona. “Paris-Nice” rules apply where the winning time is taken on the first rider from each team and every rider is credited with the time they took to ride the course. Got it? It makes the race more tactical and, crucially, more visible as helpers fall away and team leaders storm up the Montjuic hills.
There’s an early contest between the cohesion of Visma-LAB and the punch of Tadej Pogačar and all sorts of tactical questions as teams with more than one GC leader will have see if their top riders work together or the strongest is set free.
Stage 2 doesn’t have a profile yet, it’s just marked “hilly” which is true as after a parade along the coast, it’s inland and then over the Coll de Can Pasquall to Barcelona for three laps of the Montjuic circuit and so this should be one for punchy riders, think Pogačar but also Wout van Aert and others depending on how open the race is.
Stage 3 has 3,950m of climbing. The Collada de Toses is long but only steep over the top with the last 5km regularly over 10%. The Col du Calvaire is no calvary as it’s 4% most of the way. Les Angles is a “new” summit finish but it’s been used in the Route d’Occitanie and only a short climb out of the village to the ski lifts.
The elevation gain makes this sound like a decent mountain stage but the final two hours are rugged but not fierce so it could be a tactical one and a chance even for someone to go and take the yellow jersey on loan.
Stage 4 has 2,750m of vertical gain and looks like an ideal mid-mountain stage for a breakaway, and a chance for someone to grab the yellow jersey for a few days, all on scenic roads of the Aude and Ariège.
Stage 5 goes to Pau for the 77th time for the first sprint stage of the 2026 race.
Stage 6 heads into the Pyrenees and tackles the Col d’Aspin and the Col du Tourmalet, big climbs but they come far from the finish. The news is the appearance in the Cirque de Gavarnie, a protected nature zone that the Tour has long wanted to visit. It’s a valley road that climbs gently for most of the way to Gavarnie at 1,380m. A fiendish finish to the Col de Tentes at 2,208m can wait for another year.
Stage 7 starts in the tiny town of Hagetmau, the “pearl of the Chalosse” to go Bordeaux for a sprint finish.
Stage 8 is another likely sprint and déjà vu as a near copy of the 2017 stage won by Marcel Kittel from Périgeux to Bergerac on scenic roads in a land of long lunches.
Stage 9 could be the decisive day in the Tour du Limousin as it nudges 1,000 above sea level on lumpy roads but is is a hilly day for the breakaway with 3,300m of vertical gain via Suc au May. The easiest part is probably once the race has climbed out of Meymac past the station and picks up a main road to the finish in Ussel.
It’s back to Le Lioran for Stage 10 for the third time this decade after 2020 and 2024. Visitors to the ski station could be forgiven there’s only one way there as the same roads are used again, the steep Pas de Peyrol and the Col de Pertus leading to the Font de Cère. It’s the 14 July and another good day for the breakaway but we could equally see UAE and Visma-LAB drag race the peloton to the Puy Mary.
Stage 11 and Stage 12 are sprint stages and visit locations like Nevers and Magny-Cours seen in this year’s Paris-Nice on the way to Chalon-sur-Sâone.
Stage 13 is the longest in the race at just 205km. It starts in the Jura mountains before going to the Vosges with the Ballon d’Alsace before the finish in Belfort. The Ballon has its history as the first major mountain scaled by the race and it remains a hard climb.
Stage 14 is an Alsatian mountain stage. It goes via the Grand Ballon (not to be confused with the Ballon d’Alsace) to the finish line at Le Markstein before tackling the Ballon. The Col du Haag has been crossed many times before via the main road the top but the novelty this time is the ascent. It’s the Col de la Loze of the Vosges, a dedicated cycle path closed to traffic and steep in places. At the top a left turn along the ridge to Le Markstein.
Stage 15 goes into the Alps but it’s out of the Jura mountains first and via the Col de la Savine and other lumpy roads. The new climb is Mont Salève, climbed via the direct route on the north-west flank, 9km at 9% is hard to start with but the upper half has sustained sections at 14-15%. There’s still about a third of the stage left before the final climb to the Plateau de Solaison, 11km at 9%. Last seen in the 2022 Dauphiné, Primož Roglič won the GC arm in arm with Jonas Vingegaard who was half a wheel ahead to win the stage.
Stage 16 is the only time trial of the race and 26km between Evian where the water comes from and Thonon, it leaves the shores of Lac Léman with some climbing along the way to tilt the stage towards the GC contenders away from the specialists.
Stage 17 has plenty of jagged peaks and cliffs on the horizon but tries hard to avoid the mountain roads. It still crosses the Massif des Bauges and climbs to the Col du Frêne before dropping back to skirt the start town of Chambéry and then take the Col de Couz before the route reaches the plains for Voiron which hosted the Vuelta’s French arrival earlier this year. Sold as a sprint stage many will be tired now and this is a great day for a breakaway battle.
Stage 18 is a ski station summit finish but avoids the high passes, the Col de la Festinière comes after Monteynard and no surprises before the finish in Orcière-Merlette, 7km at 6.5%. It featured in the 2020 Tour and this was instructive but not thrilling as the lower gradient meant teams rode in train formation and anyone who struck out was mown down.
Stage 19 and the Bayard and then Noyer climbs will sting early on as a move tries to go clear for the day. The Col d’Ornon is a gentle climb before a scenic descent to Le Bourg d’Oisans. Then come the 21 hairpins – 23 if you actually count them – to the finish line in Alpe d’Huez, back after a four year hiatus. It’s almost famous for being famous but with 13km at over 8% it’s just a hard, decisive climb.
Stage 20 After the peloton’s had a rough night’s sleep at 1900m here comes the Queen Stage with 5,600m of vertical gain. The Croix de Fer is a big start and then comes the mighty Galibier, the high point of the Tour. The plot twist is rather than a descent to Bourg d’Oisans at the foot of Alpe d’Huez, a right turn to tackle the Col de Sarenne which leads onto Alpe d’Huez via a backroad. The Sarenne has been used before but as a descent and the climb is tougher than the stats suggest.
Stage 21 and it’s back to Paris with the Rue Le Pic and Montmartre making an encore only this time with a longer passage along the Champs-Elysées in between to lengthen the laps and give some riders more chance to chase.
Summary
54,450m of vertical gain in total which makes it the third most mountainous in the last 20 years (the average is 50,400m) but a lot of this climbing is away from the set-piece mountain stages and reserved for the battle stages in the mid-mountains. There are seven summit finishes but some of these are mild like Les Angles and Gavarnie. One solo time trial with 26km makes it the third lightest for TT distance in the last 20 years (average 50km). The sprinters get five clear chances, the same as last year but those with range have a shot at more.
The start in Barcelona obliges an early visit to the Pyrenees and so these are more hors-d’œuvre than main course. Indeed the route seems designed to leave the reveal of the winner for as late as possible and spice up the race with mid-mountain stages that look promising for frantic breakaway days although even better if the big names want to try too.
The line from Christian Prudhomme seems to be that anything could happen so late into the third week and before that there’s a good chance the yellow jersey is on loan rather than settled. There’s no realistic course that would trouble Pogačar – a blend of 21 sprints and time trials could generate a different winner but the ratings would crater – and so even if we think we know the winner already, plenty of stages along the way offer amusement and the sprint siesta stages are mainly mid-week.
This post looks into the men’s route, they’ll be follow-ups doing the same for the women’s route and also looking at other details, comments and trends soon.
Stage 8 is Perigeux Bergerac. Think you have transposed stage 9 profile/route in its place..
Great write up, thanks