Tour de France 2026: the stage-by-stage guide
The 2026 Tour starts in Spain and gets serious almost immediately. Barcelona hosts a 19.6 km team time trial on the evening of Saturday 4 July, the hills above the city decide the next afternoon, and by stage 3 the race is finishing at 1,802 metres at Les Angles with nearly 4,000 metres of climbing in its legs. Anyone who planned a gentle first week didn’t get one.
From there the route works along the Pyrenees in instalments: Foix, Pau, then a stage over the Col d’Aspin and the Col du Tourmalet to a long, strange drag of a finish at Gavarnie-Gèdre. The middle week breathes. A flat day, rolling Dordogne roads, a heavy day across the uplands, then a seven-climb Bastille Day in the Massif Central that is harder than any single number in its profile suggests. The Vosges take the second weekend, and stage 15 ends on the Plateau de Salaison, 11.3 km at 9%, the hardest finish in the race.
The only individual time trial comes on the Tuesday of the final week, and even that climbs. Then the Alps, stacked: Orcières-Merlette on Thursday, Alpe d’Huez in full on Friday, and a last mountain day over the Croix-de-Fer, Télégraphe, Galibier and Sarenne with no summit finish, just 14 km of descent to settle whatever remains.
Two time trials, one of them collective. Perhaps five days for the sprinters. Everything else tilts uphill.
Stage 1 · Barcelona → Barcelona
A 19.6 km team time trial through the host city, rolling out at 17:05 with just 167 metres of climbing. Opening with a TTT is a statement: gaps measured in tens of seconds on day one, and every leader who compromised on his squad finds out the price immediately. Nobody wins the Tour tonight. Losing it is entirely possible.
Stage 2 · Tarragona → Barcelona
168.5 km along the coast with 2,049 metres of climbing, and everything funnels into the Côte du Château de Montjuïc: 1.6 km at 8.8%, cresting just 2 km from the line at 177 metres. That is puncheur geometry, pure and simple. The GC men can’t hide either; a gap on Montjuïc is a gap in Paris money.
Stage 3 · Granollers → Les Angles
195.9 km and 3,940 metres of climbing on day three, which is a bold way to treat legs that raced a time trial 48 hours earlier. The Col de Toses, 9.5 km at 4.5% to 1,794 metres, crests 68 km out, and the finish rises to Les Angles, 1.7 km at 6.9% topping out at 1,802 metres. The final ramp is short but the day is long and high. First honest look at who came ready.
Stage 4 · Carcassonne → Foix
181.9 km into the Pyrenean foothills with 2,784 metres of climbing, though the route data carries no matched climb geometry for the day. That vertical total says lumpy rather than decisive. Break country, and a hard day to police.
Stage 5 · Lannemezan → Pau
158.3 km with 1,395 metres of climbing, the only catalogued rise the Côte de Baleix, 1.3 km at 0.7%, a côte by administrative decision only. Pau, that great Tour crossroads, gets a bunch sprint. The fast men had better take it; the terrain doesn’t stay this kind.
Stage 6 · to Gavarnie-Gèdre
The Pyrenean centrepiece. The Côte de Loucrup (1.8 km at 7.1%) and Côte de Mauvezin (3 km at 6.7%) soften the start, then the Col d’Aspin, 12 km at 6.5% to 1,486 metres, leads into the Col du Tourmalet: 17.2 km at 7.3% to 2,111 metres, carrying the Souvenir Jacques Goddet and cresting 38 km from the line. And then the sting in the design: the finish at Gavarnie-Gèdre is 18.7 km at just 3.7%, rising to 1,378 metres. Whoever attacks the Tourmalet must survive nearly 19 km of false flat where a chasing group works and a lone leader suffers. The Tourmalet argues for a seismic day; the finish gradient argues for a stalemate.
Stage 7
Flat. The Côte de Béguey, 1.4 km at 1.4%, is the only matched rise all day, which tells you everything. Sprinters.
Stage 8
Rolling rather than flat: the Côte de Domme, 3.6 km at 3.1%, comes 78 km out and the Côte du Buisson-de-Cadouin, 2.9 km at 4.5%, at 41 km to go. Nothing there to drop a well-drilled sprint train, but enough to make the break believe. Probably a sprint. Probably.
Stage 9
Four climbs across country that never flattens and never rises above a thousand metres: the Côte de Naves (2.4 km at 6.9%), the Suc au May, 3.9 km at 6.5% cresting 80 km out at 876 metres, the Côte de la Croix du Pey (4.8 km at 5.8%) and finally Mont Bessou, 0.8 km at 7.8% topping out 24 km from the line at 974 metres. Classic break-day terrain, and with the first rest day on Monday, half the peloton will want in the move. Expect an hour of violence before anything sticks.
Stage 10
Bastille Day in the Massif Central, and seven matched climbs. The Col de la Griffoul (6 km at 6.3%) and Col de Prat de Bouc (3.1 km at 6%) build to the Puy Mary, 7.7 km at 6% cresting 31 km out at 1,584 metres, then the Col de Pertus, a nasty 4.5 km at 8.1% just 14 km from the finish, with the Col de Font de Cère topping out 2 km from the line. No single climb decides it. The accumulation does, and the Pertus is close enough to the finish that a GC ambush is fully live. If someone loses this Tour in the middle week, it happens here.
Stage 11
Three small côtes, the steepest 5.6% and none longer than 1.4 km. A sprint, and a day the GC teams will be delighted to sleepwalk through.
Stage 12
The Côte de Cuzy and the Côte de Montagny-lès-Buxy, both around 4%, the latter cresting 20 km out. Another one for the fast men, and their last uncomplicated chance for a while.
Stage 13
The Vosges begin quietly: the Col des Croix (5.1 km at 4.8%), the Côte du Mont (2 km at 7.2%) and the Ballon d’Alsace, 9.1 km at 6.8% cresting 30 km from the finish at 1,170 metres. The Ballon is far enough out to keep the GC honest rather than aggressive, which makes this a breakaway’s stage to lose. But 9 km at nearly 7% with 30 km left is exactly where a bad day gets found out.
Stage 14
The full Vosges treatment. The Grand Ballon opens it, 21.6 km at 4.8% to 1,333 metres, then the Col du Page (9.8 km at 4.8%), the Ballon d’Alsace again, this time 9 km at 6.9% cresting 61 km out, and finally the Col du Haag: 11.2 km at 6.6%, summit at 1,234 metres just 6 km from the finish. The Haag is the day. Eleven kilometres at that gradient with almost nothing after it is a GC climb wearing a medium-mountain label.
Stage 15 · to Plateau de Salaison
The hardest finish of the race, and it isn’t close. First Le Salève by the Col de la Croisette, a vicious 4.6 km at 10.9% cresting 48 km out, then the Plateau de Salaison: 11.3 km at 9%, finishing at 1,503 metres. Nine per cent for eleven kilometres permits no bluffing, no wheelsucking, no hiding behind teammates. With the second rest day to follow, everyone empties the tank. The general classification after this stage will look a lot like the podium.
Stage 16 · individual time trial
The Tour’s only individual test against the clock, and it climbs: the Côte de Larringes, 9.6 km at 3.8%, crests 17 km from the line at 808 metres. That is not a course for the pure rouleur; it’s a GC examination with aero bars. For anyone who lost time on the Salaison, this is the last place to take it back without needing to answer accelerations at 9%.
Stage 17
Front-loaded and then quiet: the Côte de Rossillon 138 km out, the Col des Prés (3.5 km at 6.7%) at 125 km, the Côte de Saint-Jean d’Arvey at 115 km. The finish kicks up for 3.8 km at 6.3% to Alpe d’Huez at 1,137 metres, the bottom of a mountain the race climbs properly two days later. A breakaway day, and the sighting lap for Friday.
Stage 18 · to Orcières-Merlette
The Alps proper. The Côte de Monteynard, 9.9 km at 4.7%, comes 93 km out, the Côte de Saint-Léger-les-Mélèzes (2.5 km at 6.6%) at 19 km, and then Orcières-Merlette: 7.1 km at 6.7% to 1,821 metres. It’s a summit finish that measures rather than destroys; gaps in seconds, not minutes, unless someone is already broken. The real damage is scheduled for the next two days, and everyone knows it.
Stage 19 · to Alpe d’Huez
The queen stage. The Col Bayard (4.7 km at 6.4%) and the Col du Noyer, a serious 7.3 km at 8.1% to 1,661 metres, come with more than 100 km to race, which is breakaway fuel. The Col d’Ornon, 5.5 km at 6.1%, crests 29 km out, and then Alpe d’Huez in full: 13.8 km at 8%, finishing at 1,844 metres. Everything about this Tour funnels here. If the race is still open on Friday morning, it won’t be by Friday night.
Stage 20
The last mountain day, and no summit finish, which is the interesting choice. The Col de la Croix-de-Fer opens it, an enormous 24.1 km at 5.2% cresting 137 km out at 2,065 metres, then the Télégraphe (12 km at 6.9%) and the Galibier, 17.7 km at 6.8% to 2,632 metres, the roof of this Tour and home of the Souvenir Henri Desgrange, 60 km from the line. Last comes the Col de Sarenne, 13 km at 7.1%, summit at 1,993 metres with 14 km to go. This profile is an open invitation to a long-range raid; whether anyone still has the legs or a deficit worth the gamble is the question of the whole third week. The Sarenne descent settles it either way.
Stage 21
Processional, mostly. The Côte du Pavé des Gardes, 0.7 km at 8.7%, comes 90 km from the finish, far too early to be anything but a photograph. Champagne, a sprint, done.
Where it will be won
In three places, probably. The Barcelona team time trial writes the opening ledger, and 19.6 km is long enough for a badly drilled squad to give away half a minute before a pedal is turned in anger. The Pyrenees will gap the pretenders, though Gavarnie-Gèdre’s 3.7% run-in may cap the damage among the genuine contenders.
Then the race sits on its hands for the better part of a week, with only Bastille Day’s Pertus-and-Font-de-Cère finale as a trap for the inattentive.
The real sorting comes late. The Plateau de Salaison on stage 15 is the single most selective finish on the route, the Larringes time trial rewards whoever recovered from it, and Alpe d’Huez on the penultimate Friday is where the podium takes its final shape. With only one short, hilly ITT in the whole race, this is a climber’s Tour by design. Survive Barcelona, ride the false flat at Gavarnie with your head, and arrive in the Alps within a minute.
After that, it’s simply whoever is best up 13.8 km at 8%. It usually is.