2026 Tour de France route unveiled with Alpe d’Huez doubleheader as grand finale

The 2026 Tour de France will feature back-to-back finishes at Alpe d’Huez in the final days of the race, as well as major new climbs in the Pyrenees and Alps. After weeks of speculation and rumour, the route was formally presented in Paris on Thursday by race director Christian Prudhomme.

The Tour gets under way with a team time trial in Barcelona on Saturday, July 4 and concludes in Paris on Sunday, July 26. There is a total of 54,450m of climbing across the 21 days, with eight mountain stages and five summit finishes in a Tour that will visit the Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Vosges, the Jura and the Alps.

The summit finishes will be at Gavernie-Gèdre on stage 6, Plateau de Solaison on stage 15 and Orcières-Merlette on stage 18, ahead of the back-to-back finales on Alpe d’Huez. Stage 19 will see the race climb the Alpe by its traditional route, taking in the famous 21 hairpins. A day later, the race will climb to the Alpe d’Huez by way of the Col de Sarenne for a new summit finish.

It’s a course that will surely appeal to both four-time winner Tadej Pogacar and two-time champion Jonas Vingegaard, but it might meet with a more muted response from Remco Evenepoel, given the relative dearth of time trialling.

There is just one individual test on the course, the 26km time trial to Thonon-les-Bains at the beginning of the third week. The 19km opening team time in Barcelona, meanwhile, will see times taken individually at the finish atop Montjuic.

Despite Thierry Gouvenou’s threat to excise sprint stages from the Tour, the fast men will have several opportunities in 2026, though the mountainous start means they will have to survive some Pyrenean climbs before the first chance of a mass finish in Pau on stage 5. In total, there are seven possible sprint stages on the route.

The Grand Départ in Barcelona was unveiled last year, and the 2026 Tour will begin with a team time trial with a twist in the Catalan city. Times will be taken individually at the finish, which means teams will essentially be providing a high-speed lead-out for their captains ahead of the final climb to Montjuic.

Montjuic will be tackled in the finale of stage 2, which should provide an early springboard for skirmishes between Pogacar and Vingegaard, much like the Basque and Italian starts to the Tours of 2023 and 2024.

The Tour crosses into France by way of the Col de Toses on stage 3, marking an early entry into the Pyrenees, and the finish at Les Angles comes atop a short, sharp climb of 1.7km. Stage 4 through the Ariège features the Col de Montségur, though the climb is perhaps too far from the finish (34km) to inspire frissons among the GC men.

After the flat run to Pau on stage 5, the Tour re-enters the Pyrenees for the first, full-blown mountain stage of the race. Stage 6 combines with the old with the new, with the Col d’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet preceding the new summit finish on the long but steady climb (18.7km at 4%) to the spectacular Cirque de Gavarnie.

The following two days to Bordeaux and Bergerac should appeal to the sprinters, while the opening week concludes with a rugged stage 9 through the Corrèze to Ussel. It should be a day for the break, but in the Pogacar-Vingegaard era, every day is a GC day. With 3,300m of climbing, including the ascents of Suc au May and Mont Bessou, there could be surprises.

After the first rest day, the Tour resumes on Bastille Day with a stage through the Massif Central that promises fireworks. The Col de la Griffoul, Pas de Peyrol and Col de Pertus all feature ahead of the finish at the ski station of Le Lioran, where Vingegaard so dramatically beat Pogacar in 2024.

Two days ostensibly for the sprinters follow, to Nevers and Chalon-sur-Saône, before the Tour’s longest leg from Dole to Belfort on stage 13. The climb of the Ballon d’Alsace comes in the finale of the 205km stage and might be the platform for the GC men to go on the offensive. 

The Tour remains in the Vosges on stage 14, with the Grand Ballon, Col du Page, Ballon d’Alsace and Col du Haag preceding the finish at Le Markstein, where Thibaut Pinot signed off on his Tour career in 2023.

The climbing continues on stage 15 as the Tour reaches the Jura. After taking in the Col de la Croisette, the riders tackle the tough new summit finish at Plateau de Solaison (11.3km at 9.1%).

The Tour’s lone individual time trial comes after the second and final rest day. The 26km test along the shores of Lake Geneva is a rolling one and should suit Remco Evenepoel – don’t they all? – but cumulative fatigue will play a significant role at this point too.

Stage 17 to Voiron will be a classic battle between the break and the remaining sprinters, before the Tour begins its mountain finale on stage 18 to Orcières-Merlette. The place will forever be synonymous with Luis Ocaña unfinished symphony on the 1971 Tour. The summit finish (7.1km at 6.7%) will be a prelude to more demanding fare over the following two days.

At just 128km in length, stage 19 is likely to be an explosive one. The climbs of the Col Bayard and Col du Noyer come immediately after the start, while the short Col d’Ornon precedes the classic finale on Alpe d’Huez (13.8km at 8.1%), which returns for the first time in four years.

The terrible beauty of this year’s visit is that the riders must do it all again the following day, albeit from the other side. Stage 20 is the most demanding on the entire Tour, with four mighty mountain passes on the menu.

The 171km leg begins with the 2,000m-high Col de la Croix de Fer and then takes in the Col du Télégraphe. The highest point of the Tour follows, as the race hits 2,642m atop the Col du Galibier. After a sweeping descent, the race climbs the Col de Sarenne (12.8km at 7.3%). From the summit, there is 15km of rugged plateau road towards the finish at Alpe d’Huez, including a 3.7km kick to the line.

Like last year, three ascents of Butte Montmartre provide the grand finale to the Tour on stage 21, though a concession has been made to sprinters, as there will be an additional lap of the Champs-Élysées before the finish.