Five key stages at the 2027 Tour de France: Alps, Pyrenees and time trials

For the full breakdown of every day, see our 2027 Tour de France route guide, and for what it means for the favourites, our analysis of whether the Tour can be Pogačar-proofed.

On paper this is the hardest day of the Tour, 174 kilometres from Pau with 5,400 metres of climbing. The Col du Soulor opens it, followed by the Col du Tourmalet and the Hourquette d’Ancizan, before a summit finish on the Col du Portet, 16 kilometres at 8.7 per cent.

At 2,215 metres the Portet is the highest point of the race, and only the third time it has been used as a finish. Nairo Quintana won there in 2018 and Tadej Pogačar in 2021, the year he won his second Tour. Ralph Denk, the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe chief executive, described it after the presentation as “super super hard”.

It comes after the Toulouse time trial on stage 16, which means any lead built against the clock has to survive it. Whoever is in yellow on the morning of stage 18 will still face another day in the Pyrenees, with the Col de Marie Blanque ahead of the descent into Laruns on stage 19.

The Tour enters the mountains on the last day of the first week, 162 kilometres from Villars-les-Dombes to the top of the Grand Colombier. The Col du Berthiand, the Côte des Neyrolles and the Col de Richemond come first, then the Colombier itself, 17.4 kilometres at 7.1 per cent.

Pogačar won here in 2020 and Michał Kwiatkowski from the breakaway in 2023. This time it arrives two days after the Blois-Chambord time trial, which is the point of it. If Remco Evenepoel takes the yellow jersey in the Loire, as ASO appears to hope, this is where he first has to defend it on a long climb.

In 2026 Evenepoel lost 3:49 of his eventual 6:26 deficit to Pogačar in the opening ten days, on three mountain finishes he faced before finding his climbing rhythm. In 2027 there is only one before the first rest day, and it is this one.

The second summit finish lands on the national holiday, with four passes crammed into 150 kilometres from Cluses and 4,750 metres of climbing. The Col de la Colombière, the Col de la Croix Fry and the Col de la Forclaz precede the finale at Les Saisies, reached by the Montée de Bisanne, 12.4 kilometres at 8.3 per cent.

It follows a day to Sallanches on stage 10 that takes in the Côte de Domancy, a preview of the Worlds circuit in Haute-Savoie a month later. Back-to-back hard days in the Alps will expose anyone who came out of the Grand Colombier weekend short.

None of the Alpine climbs in this Tour goes above 2,000 metres, which keeps the gradients rather than the altitude as the test. With Paul Seixas now a Monument winner at 20, a French rider attacking on Bastille Day is not the long shot it once was.

A 38-kilometre time trial from Blois to Chambord, largely flat and with a château at either end. Its position matters as much as its length, since it comes before the Tour has climbed anything of note.

Evenepoel has won the flat time trial in each of his three Tour appearances and arrives as a four-time world champion against the clock. The test gives him the clearest opportunity of his career to build a lead on Pogačar before the mountains, much as he did early in the 2022 Vuelta a España on his way to the overall.

He will not be the only beneficiary. Seixas took bronze in the world time trial in Montréal, and Pogačar has been far steadier against the watch since 2023. Red Bull’s Zak Dempster called it “a great opportunity to make an early statement”, and 38 kilometres is long enough for the gaps to mean something.

The last day in Britain is the first that could catch a contender out. Stage 3 runs 223 kilometres from Welshpool to Cardiff with seven punchy climbs, four of them steep enough to split the bunch, on narrow Welsh roads that rarely allow a large group to stay together.

It finishes in the home city of Geraint Thomas, the 2018 Tour winner, and comes the day before the rest day and transfer to France. That means nobody has the next stage to recover what they lose here.

It will not decide the Tour, but it is the first point at which a rider can drop time through bad positioning or a bad day. After 185 kilometres to Carlisle and 223 to Liverpool, a Grand Tour leader who reaches Cardiff in the wrong part of the peloton will spend the rest day explaining why.