The China Mail - Pogacar, peloton face Alpe d'Huez twice as Tour de France 2026 route unveiled

The 21-day race will start from Barcelona on July 4 and cover 3,333 kilometres before finishing beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on July 26 after three climbs of the cobbled rue Lepic in Montmartre, organisers revealed at Thursday's unveiling.

It is an itinerary which offers Pogacar's chief rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel more hope than the 2025 route did.

"It's designed to maintain the suspense until the end," race director Christian Prudhomme said on Thursday.

The route ignores the northern part of France altogether, in complete contrast to the 2025 edition.

"If you put those two races together, you'll see weve managed to get most of France in," said Prudhomme.

The Barcelona Grand Depart will be under intense scrutiny after pro-Palestinian protestors disrupted several stages of the Vuelta a Espana earlier this year.

"It's hard to know what the situation will be in nine months, we'll have to see," Prudhomme said of the start venue, which had been negotiated long before pro-Palestinian protesters started targeting cycling races over the participation of the Israel Premier-Tech team.

- Wine country and mountain ranges -

The route takes the peloton into France via the Pyrenees and up as far as Bordeaux, before setting off on a diagonal route towards the Alps and a hefty overnight transfer to Paris for the final day.

The peloton races through several regions celebrated for their wine with Bordeaux, Bergerac and Beaujolais along the way, not to mention Evian, with its world famous mineral water.

There are seven flat stages, four hilly runs and eight mountainous routes, with five of those featuring a mountain-top finish.

For the solo specialists, such as Olympic and world time-trial champion Evenepoel, there are two races against the clock.

The opening stage features a 19km team effort in Barcelona which could propel the Belgian into his first yellow jersey.

There is also a tough 26km individual run as the Tour enters the Alps on stage 16, with a formidable climb half way through.

"This should suit Evenepoel's strengths," said route designer Thierry Gouvenou. "You could see him quiet easily taking two minutes there."

Last season, Vingegaard performed poorly on both time-trials, which is where Pogacar earned most of his final winning margin.

But the wealth of mountain racing is what stands out on the 2026 edition -- and this, on paper at least, favours Visma's Vingegaard.

The riders will tackle all five of France's mountain ranges: the Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Jura, the Vosges and then an extraordinarily challenging final week in the Alps.

Stage 19 and 20 tackle the legendary Alpe d'Huez mountain where British rider Tom Pidcock announced himself to the world.

His death-defying descent of the Col du Galibier followed by an agonised and eventually triumphant ascent around the 21 shoelace curves of Alpe d'Huez made him a fan favourite.

- Montmartre climb nailed down -

The route features 30 major climbs, the same total as the 2023 edition when Jonas Vingegard rode to his second Tour de France title.

Introduced in 2025 as part of the Olympic Games legacy, the final stage will again feature three ascents of Rue Lepic in Montmartre, where tis year crowds partied all day in the bistros before being treated to a memorable duel as Wout Van Aert dropped the game champion-in-waiting Pogacar.

"We wanted to nail this down again and hope to make it a regular feature," Prudhomme said of the wildly succesful last day romp watched by almost nine million people on French television.

The increasingly popular women's Tour de France starts in Lausanne, Switzerland a week after the men's one finishes.

Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Swiss rider Marlen Reusser should feature strongly on a nine-day race that takes in Mont Ventoux.

"It's a nasty route we've put together and a mistake on any day can make the difference," race director Marion Rousse said.

The women's race ends in Nice with a run along the iconic Promenade des Anglais.

T.Luo--ThChM