Tour de France Femmes stage 1 preview: Standby for chaos in Brittany

Any ride around Brittany is going to be punchy, and stage one of this year’s Tour de France avec Zwift is no different. And not only is the route punchy, it’s very short, so we can expect some frantic racing with everyone desperate to take the first yellow jersey of the 2025 race.

Start: 17:25 CET
Estimated arrival: 19:33 CET
Stage distance: 78.8km
Elevation gain: 1,142m

Follow stage 1 live at Domestique

We start the race on the coast, in the town of Vannes, heading the short distance north until we join a closing circuit around the finish town of Plumelec, with just over 47km ridden.

That ride north is not easy, though. The whole of Brittany is lumpy, but the race tackles its opening climb, the fourth category Côte de Botségalo on the way, and there's likely to be a fight for the jersey and a place on the day one podium.

Once on the circuit, the peloton will get a first view of the finish line with 27.4km to go, starting two full laps of the 13.7km circuit. The finish line is at the top of the Côte de Cadoudal, which acts as an intermediate sprint the first time and a third-category classified climb the next time round.

Its status as a third cat is fully justified, the climb covering 1.7km at an average gradient of 6.2%, it's certainly no easy finish.

Classified climbs: 
Côte de Botségalo at 29.3km, 800m at 5.6%
Côte de Cadoudal at 65.1km, 1.7km at 6.2%

Intermediate sprints:
Côte de Cadoudal at 51.4km

With such a short stage, a breakaway is unlikely to be allowed much room, so expect fast, combative racing all day. The classified climbs may see some riders getting a small gap, but it's day one, so competition for points will be fierce.

With such a punchy finish, this is unlikely to be one for the straight out sprinters; it could even be one for the GC riders.

Liane Lippert will need to do plenty of work for her Movistar team leader this week, but she proved her ability to do that and win stages at the Giro d'Italia earlier this month. Very much an all-rounder, Lippert can climb well, but she is most at home on these kinds of punchy sprints.

Chloé Dygert (Canyon//SRAM-Zondacrypto) can easily handle herself in a bunch sprint, but we could expect her to do best on a punchy finish like the one in Plumelec. The American is hugely powerful and has a rare ability to empty herself like few others. She hasn't raced the start of May, though, so may need to find her legs.

Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) is the out and out favourite to win the GC, but is well suited to such a finish, with an excellent sprint, which is further accentuated uphill. Her French team are very strong, but they may not want to take the yellow jersey on stage one then have to defend it.

Lotte Kopecky is perhaps the best suited to this kind of finish. The SD Worx-Protime rider is well-versed in the dark arts of positioning and has prodigious kick, so if she can put the power down, she may well take yellow. The spanner in the works could be a back problem which manifested itself at the Giro, causing her to abandon.

The weather is forecast to be benign, with cloud cover, but no rain and temperatures around 22º. Wind is unlikely to be an issue on such a winding route, but they’re low anyway.