Weighing the 2026 Grand Tours: How the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta take different paths

Let’s start with the raw workload. The Vuelta is the heaviest on elevation gain: 58,156 metres over 3,275km. The Tour sits in the middle at 54,450 metres across 3,333km. The Giro is the lightest of the three at 49,150 metres over 3,459km, around 15.5% less climbing than the Vuelta. That ordering matters because it sets the physical cost of the race, and it changes what “normal” feels like by the time the third week arrives.

A different contrast sits in the route’s decision points: how often the GC is pushed onto a summit finish. The Vuelta has 10 medium mountain or mountain stages and seven summit finishes, the most of any Grand Tour in 2026. Those mountaintop arrivals come at Font Romeu, Valdelinares, Calar Alto, La Pandera, Peñas Blancas, Alto de Aitana, and the final showdown at Collado del Alguacil in the Sierra Nevada.

The Tour de France, by comparison, counts eight mountain stages and five summit finishes, with the race building towards a heavy Alpine ending rather than stacking mountaintop days throughout. The summit finishes are at Gavernie Gèdre (stage 6), Plateau de Solaison (stage 15), Orcières Merlette (stage 18) and then the back-to-back finales at Alpe d’Huez on stages 19 and 20, first via the classic approach and then via the Col de Sarenne.

The Giro d’Italia sits slightly lower on pure mountain density, with six mountain stages and a route that saves its hardest terrain for the final week. Its key summit finishes are at Blockhaus (stage 7), Pila (stage 14), Carì (stage 16) and Piani di Pezzè (stage 19), before the race is effectively decided on stage 20 with the double ascent of Piancavallo.

The other clear divider is time trial leverage, and here the three routes point in different directions.

The Giro has just one individual time trial, but it is a proper one: a flat 40.2 kilometres on stage 10. It comes relatively early, after only one mountain stage, so the bunch should still be comparatively fresh. That matters. A long test at that point can open a buffer that shapes how the rest of the race is ridden in the mountains.

The Vuelta ends up in a similar place on total time trial kilometres at 42, but splits them across two very different efforts. The Monaco opener is only 9.6 kilometres and is more about early ordering than lasting damage. 

The decisive test is much later: a flat 32.5 kilometre run with just 168 metres of elevation on stage 18 in Jerez de la Frontera. Deep into week three, the time trial becomes less about pure watts and more about resilience. It tends to surface the riders with the deepest reserves, and it can flip a tight GC on its head.

The Tour goes its own way. There is a 19.7 kilometre team time trial, with 2 climbs in the last 4km, in the Grand Départ Barcelona with individual times taken at the line, plus one 26 kilometre individual test in the beginning of week three. 

It’s not a pure rouleur’s course, mind, with the road climbing steadily for the first 9km to the Côte de Larringes (9.4km at 4.3%). A short descent follows, but a flat run into Thonen-les-Baines. Remco Evenepoel, the ‘Aero Bullet,’ will be the favourite for stage honours, but it’s not immediately clear what kind of gaps will open among the podium contenders here.

But routes just set the constraints, they do not write the script. The same mix of climbs and time trials can produce control racing or chaos depending on who turns up, who is willing to take risks, and how teams choose to spend their matches. 

Even so, the Tour does tend to operate at a slightly higher baseline. Over the last three seasons, the Tour averaged 41.413, 41.808 and 42.849km per hour, compared to 41.110, 40.247 and 42.645 at the Vuelta and 39.244, 41.860 and 41.728 at the Giro.

That makes sense. July is where the attention and pressure peak, and teams tend to arrive with their strongest line-ups, deepest support squads and most polished race plans.

With the routes set and the selections slowly coming into view, the conversation shifts. It becomes less about design and more about choices. Who turns up to win, and who is willing to race? That is when these routes start to mean something more than numbers.