Fifty years ago, on 4 July 1976, as Europe toiled through a historic, relentless period of intense heat, a new era was beginning at the Tour de France.
On the ninth stage of that year’s Tour, an interregnum edition of the Grande Boucle sandwiched between the reigns of Merckx and Hinault, Lucien Van Impe and Joop Zoetemelk duelled on what would soon become cycling’s most emblematic, atmospheric, pivotal climb.
An almost perfect contrast in style and tactical acumen, the bobbing, battling Dutchman Zoetemelk spent most of the second half of the 13.7km slog to the hitherto largely ignored ski resort of Alpe d’Huez steadfastly glued to Van Impe’s back wheel, as per his sports director’s instructions. At the same time, the Belgian climber, supple and explosive, was under strict orders to keep the pace high, his DS Cyrille Guimard fixated on the yellow jersey and the road to Paris.
Roared on by an orange sea of travelling Dutch fans, Zoetemelk wins the sprint at the top, and duly gets branded a wheelsucker by a furious Van Impe and the Belgian press. Van Impe pulls on yellow and, ultimately, wins the Tour.
Alpe d’Huez, a cluster of 21 hairpin bends nestled in the heart of the French Alps and rising from the Romanche Valley to an unremarkable ski resort, had only been visited once by the Tour prior to Van Impe’s and Zoetemel’s fraught duel, in 1952 when Fausto Coppi took the stage and the yellow jersey, as part of the race’s at the time short-lived flirtation with finishing at the top of mountains.
Despite the best efforts of Il Campionissimo, that first visit proved a mere, fleeting dalliance. But by the mid-1970s, summit finishes were in vogue and the Tour’s relationship with the Alpe would soon blossom into a fully-fledged love affair.
For the next three decades, they were practically inseparable. Between 1976 and 2008, Alpe d’Huez featured as a stage finish at the Tour 25 times (and twice in 1979). From 1981 to 1995, it was only missing from the race itinerary twice.
Alpe d’Huez was where the Dutch empire had its last stand, where Thevenet couldn’t climb the stairs, where Pollentier tried to trick the drug testers, where Hinault and LeMond held hands, where Pantani soared, where Armstrong gave ‘the look’, and where the Texan felt the full wrath of a furious French public.
For over 30 years, the Tour was won on the Alpe. It was the definitive test of cycling’s definitive race.
Throughout the Prudhomme era, however, the Tour’s passionate affair with Alpe d’Huez has dwindled to the occasional bottle of wine and trip to the cinema. Since Carlos Sastre’s Tour-winning attack in 2008, the men’s race has traversed those famous 21 hairpins, barging through hordes of inebriated spectators, just five times.
Two-year gaps between visits have become three, then four, a period which has seen the Dutch Mountain also undergo a thorough anglicisation process, with Brits either winning the stage or wearing the yellow jersey atop the Alpe on every visit since 2013.
But this year, during another summer of record-breaking temperatures, cycling’s most famous climb once again looms large over the Tour de France. In fact, it threatens to overshadow the entire race.
For only the second time in the Tour’s history, the race will finish on Alpe d’Huez twice, on consecutive days (the 2013 race tackled the Alpe twice, but during the same stage). On stage 19, the traditional, historic climb – 13.7km with an 8.1 per cent average gradient – will serve as the finale to a relatively straightforward stage from Gap.
The following stage, the penultimate one of the 2026 Tour, is an altogether different, more unique proposition. A humdinger of a route through the Alps, featuring the legendary Croix de Fer, Télégraphe, and Galibier, will spit the riders out onto the northern flank of Alpe d’Huez, via the lesser-known Col de Sarenne.
The Sarenne is a narrow irregular road, almost as long and almost as steep as its more famous brother, which was used as the descent off the Alpe during that 2013 stage and where Pete Kennaugh beat fellow Brit Ben Swift at the 2017 Critérium du Dauphiné.
Those back-to-back visits to Alpe d’Huez form the centrepiece of a Tour route that, even by the race’s recent crescendo-loving standards, is as backloaded as they come.
The Tour, they say, is won on the Alpe. Or at least that’s what the organisers will be dreaming of at the end of the next three weeks.
What’s on this year’s route?
Grand tour route design, it seems, is cyclical. In fact, this year’s Tour template – a spectacular southern start, an early, neutered journey through the Pyrenees, a long trek through the centre of France, and a big final week in the Alps – shows up every 17 years, to be exact.
In 1992, a Grand Départ in San Sebastián, featuring an opening prologue followed by a loop around the Basque city, preceded an especially tame route, as future five-time winner Miguel Induráin dominated the Tour for the second year in succession, despite the best efforts of Claudio Chiappucci in the Alps.
And at the 2009 Tour, after an extravagant opening time trial on Monaco’s Grand Prix circuit, a fairly mundane venture through the Pyrenees and a long, seemingly never-ending slog north meant nothing of note happened GC-wise for almost two weeks. Until, that is, grand tour man-of-the-moment Alberto Contador killed off the race with one scorching attack at Verbier.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme – whose hopes of a dramatic extra time finale on Mont Ventoux that year were dashed by Contador’s killer blow – will be desperate to avoid a repeat of the 2009 Tour’s damp squib outcome this July. Not that he has much say in the matter, of course, with a certain Mr Pogačar around.
2009 was also the last time the Tour visited Barcelona, for a sodden stage won by Thor Hushovd on Montjuïc. The Catalan capital, and its iconic hill and castle with its turbulent, bloodstained past overlooking the busy port city, is steeped in cycling history.
A mainstay at the springtime Volta a Catalunya, Montjuïc is the home of one of cycling’s great urban circuits, while the hill was first visited by the Tour on the race’s first trip across the border to Spain in 1957 when Jacques Anquetil – on his way to the first of five Tour victories – won a 9.8km time trial to the castle.
But this year marks the first time Barcelona has hosted the Tour’s Grand Départ. And it will do so in style, with an innovative new team time trial format kicking off proceedings before day two sees a tricky, potentially explosive circuit on Montjuïc finishing at the city’s Olympic Stadium, a more difficult variation on the Volta a Catalunya’s already severe usual fare.
The new TTT format, which will see each rider’s time taken individually at the line, has been tested in recent years at Paris-Nice and is one of a number of innovations borrowed from the Tour’s sister races to make it into this year’s route.
The steep ramps of the Plateau de Solaison, stage 15’s potentially Tour-deciding summit finish, have been used twice at the race formerly known as the Dauphiné since 2017, including this year, while the alternative route to Alpe d’Huez via the Col de Sarenne, as noted above, was first trialled at the 2017 Dauphiné.
Elsewhere, this year’s Tour route looks set to provide a series of ever-changing moments, of bite-sized chunks, vignettes for the TikTok generation. There’s no solid, Cipollini-era week of bunch finishes here. Nor is there even a lengthy stay in one mountain range.
Instead, this year’s Tour is designed for short attention spans, a race broken into a series of miniature themes that don’t outstay their welcome: the big start in Barcelona is followed by two grippy stages among the Pyrenees’ less malevolent beasts and one killer, but hopefully not race-killing, outing among the big boys, including the fearsome Tourmalet.
From the second weekend, the race settles into a pattern, with two sprint days followed by two tough treks through the Massif Central (stages opportunistic attackers like Ben Healy will have highlighted in bright yellow marker), followed by another two sprint stages.
Things start to get really tough in the Vosges and Jura, where the Plateau de Solaison will give the GC a definitive, perhaps unchangeable, shape heading into the final rest day. Racing resumes with a short, 26km time trial near Lake Genva – which, in a microcosm of the entire Tour, follows its own uphill, downhill, flat pattern – that could either shake up the overall standings or entrench them even further.
A summit finish at Orcières-Merlette, the scene of Luis Ocaña’s humbling of Eddy Merckx in 1971, then sets the scene for our final double dose of Alpe d’Huez, where – if it hasn’t already – the destination of this year’s yellow jersey will be decided.
So, something for everyone, then. Except, of course, the pure sprinters, who are limited to a maximum of five bunch kick opportunities throughout the entire three weeks (though the Tour has thrown them a conciliatory bone by tilting the green jersey competition further in their favour).
The fast men won’t even have Paris this time, either, as route director Thierry Gouvenou sticks with the revamped Montmartre-based finishing circuits that lit up the French capital in the pouring rain last July. Whether the second album will be as exciting remains to be seen. Though the potential for a last-ditch GC shake-up, denied last year by the weather and Pogačar’s dominance, will keep us on our toes this time around.
So, as you sit back and enjoy the next three weeks of racing on the roads of France (plus a bit of Spain) – and all its quirks and changing rhythms – here’s our stage-by-stage preview to keep you company.
Along with the key details for each stage, we’ve also included a ‘sofa score’ feature, which will keep you abreast of the best days (in our opinion) to make your apologies to the family or put on your best cough and phone up the boss, before sitting back and enjoying the best bike race in the world.
Stage 1
Saturday 4 July
Barcelona – Barcelona, 19.6km (Team Time Trial)
Barcelona waited 144 years for the Sagrada Família – the extraordinary, divisive Gaudí-designed church which towers over the city both literally and metaphorically – to be completed, Pope Leo XIV inaugurating and blessing the now-finished tourist attraction in the middle of June, a century on from Gaudí’s death.
The Tour hasn’t waited quite so long to feature a team time trial as its opening stage, but it’s still 55 years since cycling’s biggest race kicked off with a TTT. Starting down at the port, among the outdoor gym enthusiasts and sun worshippers, the 19.6km route soon takes the teams into the city centre, paying homage to Gaudí’s innovative, groundbreaking work by passing the Sagrada Família, along with some of his other famous designs, such as the Casa Batlló.
In keeping with the emphasis on innovation, this team time trial offers a twist on the old format, with individual times (rather the time of the team’s fourth or fifth rider) being taken at the line. With the stage finishing at Montjuïc’s Olympic Stadium, expect the likes of UAE, Visma, and Decathlon to lead out Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Seixas to the foot of the climb, where anything could happen. This could be an opening day for the ages.
First team start time: 4.05pm (all times BST)
Last team finish time: 6.16pm
Sofa score: 9/10. It’s the first stage of the Tour, so you never want to miss it. But this opening stage could be more important than most.
Stage 2
Sunday 5 July
Tarragona – Barcelona, 183.9km (Hilly)
Starting in Tarragona, the home of the late Xavier Tondo (one of this author’s favourite riders), an undulating, deceptively difficult ride along the coast takes the peloton back to Barcelona.
Once there, they will be treated to three 12km finishing circuits around Montjuïc, before finishing once again outside the Olympic Stadium, built in the 1920s and renovated for the 1992 Games (and the recent temporary host of Barcelona’s football team while the Nou Camp was being revamped).
A slightly different take on the circuit used by the Volta a Catalunya every year, the finishing lap contains the 1.6km-long climb to the Castell de Montjuïc, boasting an average gradient of 9.3 per cent, with a 600m section at over 13 per cent. It may only be day two, but the best riders will be forced to come to the fore.
The Magic Fountain stationed below the hill is renowned for its dazzling light, sound, and dancing water displays. I have a feeling it could be upstaged today.
Expected finish time: 4.27pm
Sofa score: 10/10. Expect fireworks.
Stage 3
Monday 6 July
Granollers – Les Angles, 195.9km (Mountain)
Starting in Barcelona means an early trip for the Tour into the Pyrenees, and while this stage back across the border into France won’t decide the race by any means, it still packs a punch.
Featuring 3,850m of elevation (a heady proposition so early in the race), it boasts a proper first-cat climb in the Col de Toses (9.3km at 6.5 per cent), while the combination of the Col du Calvaire and the finishing kick to Les Angles could draw out some GC contenders. A plucky opportunist could also take advantage of any conservatism in the bunch to nab a few days in the yellow jersey.
Expected finish time: 3.54pm
Sofa score: 7/10
Stage 4
Tuesday 7 July
Carcassonne – Foix, 181.9km (Hilly)
Another stage which, if it didn’t come so early in the race, would be characterised as a ‘transition’ stage. Starting in one of the homes of cassoulet, that hearty stew favoured by Tour journos, this stage, working its way through Cathar country, has the breakaway written all over it.
Expect the Col de Montségur, located 35km from the finish, to shake out the break. Though considering the limited sprint opportunities available at this Tour, the more climb-friendly fast men could also eye this one up, and put their teams to work to ruthlessly slaughter the hopes of the escapees, Medieval Inquisition style.
Expected finish time: 4.23pm
Sofa score: 7/10
Stage 5
Wednesday 8 July
Lannemezan – Pau, 158.3km (Flat)
Finally, a first real nailed-on chance for the sprinters in the Tour’s third city, Pau, the gateway to the Pyrenees and the home of more than a few rest day doping scandals over the years.
Rolling, rural roads could make things sketchy on the run-in, though expect an all-out sprint battle royale once we reach the city. The likes of Mads Pedersen, Tim Merlier, and Jasper Philipsen (the winner the last time the Tour finished in Pau) will have this one circled in the road book.
Expected finish time: 4.15pm
Sofa score: 5/10
Stage 6
Thursday 9 July
Pau – Gavarnie-Gèdre, 185.6km (Mountain)
This may be the only true Pyrenean test of the 2026 Tour, but due to the organisers’ ambitions for a suspenseful GC race, today’s stage has been watered down, in a bid to dissuade Pogačar ripping things up before we’ve even reached the first weekend.
In fact, this stage has a whiff of the Giro about it, the Italian grand tour often following up a brute like the Mortirolo with a long drag to the line. The big tests here are still huge. The Aspin and Tourmalet are legends of the Tour, and don’t be shocked if UAE Team Emirates decide to light it up on the first HC climb of the race.
However, the Tourmalet tops out with just under 40km to go, and is followed by an 18.7km drag to the line at Gavarnie-Gèdre which, in normal times, would have promised a small group sprint between some skinny climbers. It’s a climb easy and long enough to allow a strong team to snuff out a long-range attack – but whether that convinces Pogačar to wait for another day remains to be seen.
Expected finish time: 4.15pm
Sofa score: 8/10. I say that, but we all know Tadej will try something, don’t we?
Stage 7
Friday 10 July
Hagetmau – Bordeaux, 175.1km (Flat)
Exiting the Pyrenees and heading north, the Tour throws another bone to the fast men in the sprint capital of Bordeaux, a bunch kick paradise where Mark Cavendish won in 2010 (and where the Manx Missile was denied by mechanical failure in 2023). Barring the short Côte de Béguey, the route is pan flat. This stage is all about the sprint.
Expected finish time: 4.13pm
Sofa score: 3/10. If you’re bust, the last 10km will probably suffice.
Stage 8
Saturday 11 July
Périgueux – Bergerac, 180.4km (Flat)
The sprinters will think they’re in heaven, being kindly afforded a second opportunity in a row. Today’s route through the Dordogne is practically an exact replica of stage 10 of the 2017 Tour, which was won by Marcel Kittel. Which tells you all you need to know about today’s stage.
Expected finish time: 4.20pm
Sofa score: 2/10
Stage 9
Sunday 12 July
Malemort – Ussel, 185.5km (Hilly)
When it comes to designing a stage made for Ben Healy, I don’t think the Irish star could have come up with better himself.
We’re in the Massif Central now, a paradise of volcanic beauty and grippy, relentless roads. The Suc au May (3.8km at 7.7 per cent) may be the star, but this one is up and down all day, and boasts 3,300m in elevation. Expect a mini classic for the breakaway, who won’t mind using up their energy before the rest day.
Expected finish time: 4.47pm
Sofa score: 7/10
Stage 10
Tuesday 14 July
Aurillac – Le Lioran, 166.6km (Mountain)
After a well-earned rest, things start to heat up on Bastille Day with a saw-tooth profile through the Massif Central. This is the kind of stage that’s perfect for an ambush, the rapid-fire succession of climbs, including the cat one Puy Mary and Col de Pertus, giving teams the opportunity to isolate their rivals.
It was this stage in 2024 that saw Jonas Vingegaard claw back a 30-second deficit to Tadej Pogačar on the Pertus, before shocking the Slovenian in a thrilling sprint in Le Lioran. Will we be treated to another head-to-head battle between the Tour’s big two today?
Expected finish time: 4.18pm
Sofa score: 8/10
Stage 11
Wednesday 15 July
Vichy – Nevers, 161.3km (Flat)
While a few of this year’s stages are covers of old classics, this one is a proper B side. Spa town Vichy, the controversial collaborative capital of wartime France, has only hosted the Tour once before, in 1952, while Nevers last hosted the race in 2003, when Alessandro Petacchi sprinted to one of his six Tour wins.
With a dead-straight finishing stretch of six kilometres, the sprinting crop of 2026 will be aiming to follow in Petacchi’s wheel tracks.
Expected finish time: 4.31pm
Sofa score: 2/10
Stage 12
Thursday 16 July
Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours – Chalon-sur-Saône, 179.1km (Flat)
After a motor racing-themed start, this stage is only slightly tougher than yesterday’s, with a fourth cat climb 20km from the line the major obstacle. Amazingly, this is the last nailed-on bunch sprint of the entire Tour. So they better make the most of it.
Expected finish time: 4.29pm
Sofa score: 4.29pm
Stage 13
Friday 17 July
Dole – Belfort, 205.8km (Hilly)
You know the final week of the Tour is tough when this stage, featuring an actual Category One ascent under 30km from the finish, is labelled by the race organisers as ‘hilly’.
The climb in question is the Ballon d’Alsace, the first mountain ever climbed by the Tour in 1905, averaging 6.9 per cent for 8.9km. It may not be enough to awaken the GC contenders from their slumber, but its proximity to the finish means that only the breakaway’s strongest climbers will contest the win.
It’s the kind of stage that would have been tailormade for Thibaut Pinot, whose hometown of Mélisey hosts today’s intermediate sprint. I wonder if the goats will be out to watch?
Expected finish time: 4.46pm
Sofa score: 6/10
Stage 14
Saturday 18 July
Mulhouse – Le Markstein Fellering, 155.3km (Mountain)
When the Tour last visited Le Markstein, in 2023, Tadej Pogačar won, a consolation prize following his thorough annihilation by Jonas Vingegaard. This time, the finish marks the start of the race’s final phase, where practically every day could prove decisive until Paris.
This tightly packed stage in the Vosges mountains is relentless, featuring the Grand Ballon, Col d’Oderen, Ballon d’Alsace (for the second day in a row), before approaching Le Markstein from the opposite side to 2023, via the tough Col du Haag, which averages 7.3 per cent over 11.2km.
The six kilometre, mostly downhill run to the finish could dissuade some GC-focused attacking, but make no mistake – this is a brutal stage.
Expected finish time: 4.24pm
Sofa score: 8/10
Stage 15
Sunday 19 July
Champagnole – Plateau de Solaison, 183.9km (Mountain)
Now we’re talking. The real Tour de France starts now.
Unlike yesterday’s unrelenting stage, today’s trek through the Jura is all about the finishing climb, the Plateau de Solaison. Alright, maybe that’s a bit unfair. The rolling start could be tricky, while the Col de la Croisette is brutally steep, at 11.2 per cent for 4.6km.
But the Solaison is the main event. At 11.3km and an average gradient of nine percent, it’s by far the toughest finishing test of the 2026 Tour so far. Jonas Vingegaard won atop the climb at the 2023 Dauphiné, crossing the line hand in hand with teammate Primož Roglič, who secured the overall title. Visma will be hoping for similar levels of dominance today.
Expected finish time: 4.41pm
Sofa score: 9/10. The Tour could be won today.
Stage 16
Tuesday 21 July
Évian-les-Bains – Thonon-les-Bains, 26.1km (Individual Time Trial)
The only solo race against the clock of this year’s Tour takes place straight after the final rest day, and if any GC contender is below par, they’ll feel it in their legs straightaway on the 9.7km climb to Larringes, overlooking Lake Geneva. After that, it’s all downhill and flat to the line.
Remco Evenepoel will be all over this one. But Tadej Pogačar may well be buoyed by the fact that Jacques Anquetil won in Thonon-les-Bains in 1957, on the way to his first Tour win. Maître Jacques would go on to become the first rider in history to win the Tour five times. Will Pogačar lay the foundations for his fifth Tour win here?
Last rider start time: 4.15pm
Sofa score: 8/10
Stage 17
Wednesday 22 July
Chambery – Voiron, 174.7km (Flat)
ASO have branded this one ‘flat’, but thanks to a horribly tough opening 60km, stage 17 has ‘final week breakaway’ written all over it. And even if the sprint teams do get their act together in the second half, there’s the little matter of a pesky climb 3km from the finish in Voiron, which makes its Tour debut after hosting the Vuelta last year.
Expected finish time: 4.18pm
Sofa score: 5/10
Stage 18
Thursday 23 July
Voiron – Orcières Merlette, 185.2km (Mountain)
Orcières Merlette is a climb steeped in Tour history. It’s where Luis Ocaña (briefly) toppled Eddy Merckx in 1971, where Greg LeMond pulled on yellow in ’89, and where Primož Roglič won his last Tour stage to date, in 2020, before his heart was broken by Pogačar on La Planche des Belles Filles.
This year’s stage starts off lumpy before a long drag to the final climb which, at 7.1km and 6.7 per cent, isn’t the most intimidating of finishing finishes this year. It probably won’t decide the 2026 race, but it will – if the GC battle is still tight – offer us a glimpse into how the tougher tests in the Alps will play out. Expect a big fight for the breakaway on the early Engins climb, too.
Expected finish time: 4.12pm
Sofa score: 8/10
Stage 19
Friday 24 July
Gap – Alpe d’Huez, 127.9km (Mountain)
Alpe d’Huez, part one. A short, sharp 128km stage starts, rather rudely, with the one-two punch of the Col Bayard and Col du Noyer straight out of Gap where, ironically, gaps could immediately open up. A long flat section leads to the Cat 2 Col d’Ornon, which could prove pivotal in whittling down the break.
After that, it’s all about the Alpe, one of the sport’s great theatres, tackled from what will now be known as the traditional side. Drink it in, all 21 hairpins of it.
Expected finish time: 4.24pm
Sofa score: 10/10. It’s Alpe d’Huez, baby!
Stage 20
Saturday 25 July
Le Bourg d’Oisans – Alpe d’Huez, 170.9km (Mountain)
Like a fine French restaurant aiming for its third Michelin star, the penultimate stage of this year’s Tour de France serves up classic fare with an innovative, exciting twist.
The mammoth trio of the Croix de Fer, Télégraphe, and Galibier are what Alpine dreams are made of, providing the backbone of epic Tour stages for over a century. The final twist in the tail comes, not courtesy of the second consecutive finish at Alpe d’Huez, but the direction we approach it from: the new, narrow, twisting ascent of the Col de Sarenne.
From the top, there are 14km to the finish at cycling’s favourite ugly ski resort. Will the Tour still be hanging in the balance? Let’s hope so.
Expected finish time: 3.11pm
Sofa score: 10/10. Cancel the barbecue, send the kids to the park. This is the Tour at its finest.
Stage 21
Sunday 26 July
Thoiry – Paris, 133km (Flat)
For the second year in a row, the annual procession to the French capital has been spiced up by three trips to Montmartre and its brilliant, atmospheric final climb.
Last year’s duel between Pogačar and Van Aert was an epic, despite the rain neutralising the GC. Will we see the overall standings upset in Paris for the first time since 1989 if the weather holds up?
Expected finish time: 6.30pm.
Sofa score: 9/10. It’s Paris, after all. And you never know…
