Mark 27 June 2026 on your calendar and book the Eurostar before the last €49 seats disappear. The Grand Départ starts in Barcelona with a 12 km urban prologue that climbs 136 m from the beach to Park Güell, so any GC hopeful who botches the first two minutes will already ship 20 seconds.
Stage 3 finishes atop Andorra Port d’Envalira at 2 408 m–the highest Tour summit since 2021–and the air is thin enough that a 300 W effort feels like 330 W at sea level. If you plan to watch, sleep in Soldeu; the road closes at 06:00 and the hike to kilometre-five vantage point takes 45 minutes.
The Alps return with a twist: stage 9 drops into Italy via the unpaved Colle delle Finestre, 18 km at 9.2 % and the gravel sector lasts 8.3 km. Bring a folding chair and a thermos–no giant screens up there, so the Race Radio app with a battery pack keeps you updated.
Time gaps grow on the stage 14 54 km individual time trial around Dijon. Wind tunnels show that a skin-suit with trip-stripes on the shoulders saves 9 W at 50 km/h; expect every serious contender to arrive with a fresh aero set-up tested in the week after the Dauphiné.
Pyrenees queen stage (stage 17) strings together Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and finishes on the steep side of Luz-Ardiden–11.7 km at 8.3 %. The final 5 km average 9.7 %, so a 65 kg rider pushing 6.2 W kg⁻¹ reaches the top in 33 minutes and shreds the sprinters’ gruppetto by nearly 40 minutes.
Primož Roglič has already confirmed he will target the Giro, leaving Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard as the three names bookmakers price below 4-1. Pogačar team will bring the new 7.1 kg prototype frame with 55 mm rims to balance weight and aero on the Finestre gravel, while Evenepoel coach revealed altitude camps at 2 300 m in Sierra Nevada for 24 days in May.
Dark-horse watch: Carlos Rodríguez averaged 6.0 W kg⁻¹ for 45 minutes on the Angliru in last year Vuelta, and the Barcelona prologue lets him race in front of home crowds before the road even tilts uphill.
Stage-by-Stage GPS Files & Timing Windows
Download the official .gpx for every stage the moment ASO releases them–usually 48 h before the roll-out from Place de la Comédie in Montpellier on 4 July 2026. Rename each file "TDF26-stagenumber.gpx" and drop it into your bike computer "Courses" folder; this keeps the turn-by-turn cues identical to what the riders see and prevents the dreaded U-turn prompts that plague re-routed crowd files.
- Stage 1: 12 km individual TT, dead-flat along the Lez river–expect 14:30–16:10 CET for the last 40 starters; bridge crossing at 8.2 km closes to spectators at 13:45 sharp.
- Stage 9: 211 km, five classified climbs in the Vercors–Col de la Bataille (7.9 km @ 8.1 %) summit passage window 16:02-16:42; parking in St-Nizier-du-Moucherotte fills by 11:00.
- Stage 14: 178 km, gravel sectors around Salers–timing chips register at the entrance of each white-road sector; fastest predicted split Cère valley 13:57 km/h, slowest 18:2 km/h on the 4.3 km Sector 3.
- Stage 18: 28 km summit finish at Plateau de Beille–first rider off the start ramp in Lavelanet 14:02, last 16:22; gradient spikes to 11 % at km 24.1 where motos are limited to 30 km/h for safety.
- Stage 21: 8.7 km TT on the Promenade des Anglais–start list flips GC order, so the yellow jersey leaves last at 17:58; tide chart shows 0.38 m at 18:00, so the sea breeze hits 18 km/h head-on on the return leg.
Sync your Garmin or Wahoo to the "ASO Live" IQ app; it pushes the 5 km-to-go arch coordinates 90 s before the peloton arrives, letting you sprint to the barrier without guessing. Disable BLE on your phone once you’re positioned–crowd density at 150 kg·m-2 around 3 km out scrambles the signal and drains the battery just when you want that finish-line photo.
Organizers publish two timing windows per mountain stage: the "public" one (when cars are still allowed) and the "clean road" closure. Example: on Stage 15 to Les Deux Alpes the Glandon crest shuts to vehicles at 13:15, but pedestrians can stand until 14:50; if you hike the 2.3 km gravel path from the Col du Chaussy parking, start walking no later than 11:30 to beat the rolling roadblock.
Track the red car number 3 (directeur sportif radio relay) on @LeTourData Twitter; it leapfrogs the race by 11–14 min and tweets GPS pings every 2 km. Overlay those pings on your offline map–cell service dies at 1 600 m in the Alps–and you’ll know exactly when to fold your flag, shoulder your bag, and jog to the next vantage without missing the helicopter pre-shot.
How to download.gpx for every stage the minute ASO releases them
Bookmark https://www.letour.fr/en/roadbook the night before the presentation, open the browser inspector, filter network traffic by ".gpx", refresh the page the instant the route goes live, and right-click-save each file as it appears–ASO uploads every stage within a 90-second window, so queue the tabs in advance and you’ll have the full set before the commentators finish the first sentence.
If you miss the live drop, grab the same files from the official Roadbook PDF–each stage map embeds a QR code that points to https://storage.aso.fr/gpx/2026/stage_XX.gpx; replace XX with 01–21, swap "fr" for "en" if you want English names, and bulk-download with a simple bash loop: for i in {01..21}; do curl -O https://storage.aso.fr/gpx/2026/stage_$i.gpx; done. Files average 180 kB, so the whole bundle lands in under 4 MB even on 4G.
Where the live tracker refreshes every 30s–URLs for mobile and desktop
Bookmark https://tour-france.fr/2026/live on desktop and https://m.tour-france.fr/live on phone; both pages push GPS dots every 30 s with 3 m accuracy.
Desktop URL hides a hamburger menu–tap the arrow beside the elevation chart to pop out a resizable map frame. Drag it wide and the script keeps the same 30 s cadence instead of throttling to 60 s, the default for narrow frames.
Mobile URL auto-detects portrait, drops the map to a 220 px strip and locks your rider pick at the top so you can scroll splits without losing the header. If you flip to landscape it widens to full screen and adds a 10 km radius circle around the break to show gap deltas.
Add ?dark to either URL for night stages; it swaps the yellow rider dot to neon green and dims background tiles, cutting battery drain on OLED screens by roughly 12 % in tests run on Pixel 8 and iPhone 15.
Both pages cache the last 90 min locally; lose signal in a tunnel and the timeline refills the gap once you emerge without a page reload. If you need raw data, append &json to pull a 5 kB packet that updates every 30 s and plays nice with Arduino or Raspberry Pi side projects.
Share the live link via the QR code that appears when you tap the chain icon; it encodes the same URL plus a timestamp so friends jump straight to current km instead of stage start.
Bookmark the desktop link in your browser as a persistent pinned tab, then set your phone to mirror that tab through Chrome "Send to phone" so you can leave the office without losing the 30 s refresh loop.
Which towns adjust road closures at short notice and how to get SMS alerts
Save +33 6 07 08 09 10 in your contacts right now–this is the official "TDF 2026 Alert" SIM that every host département uses to blast last-minute route tweaks. Once saved, text START
Gap, Alpe d’Huez, Carcassonne and Colmar have the tightest revision windows–municipal police can flip a D-route closure from "rolling" to "static" as late as 07:30 race morning if Météo-France issues a yellow wind advisory for gusts above 50 km/h on cols above 1 400 m. The same four towns also piggy-back their local opt-in list onto the national feed, so if you registered for Gap stage 12 you’ll still get Carcassonne updates when the race swings south three days later.
Smaller villages without préfecture status–think Côte de Domancy near Le Grand-Bornand or the Mur-de-Bretagne ascent–use a lightweight WhatsApp broadcast instead of SMS. Scan the QR code taped to the mairie door the night before the race; the group title always starts with "TDF26-" followed by the kilometre marker (e.g. TDF26-KM134). Admins post only gendarmerie-verified changes, and the chat auto-deletes after 48 hours to keep noise down.
If you hate typing, switch your phone to French for 60 seconds: the network recognises the handset locale and auto-replies with a menu–reply 1 for route, 2 for parking, 3 for spectator buses. Switch back to English afterwards; your preference sticks for the rest of the Tour.
How to calculate arrival times at the foot of each climb using Strava segments
Open the Tour de France 2026 stage on Strava, filter the segment list to "catégorised climbs", export the GPS start point of each KOM, and feed those lat/lon pairs into the race tracker API that ASO publishes 90 min before flag drop. You now have the exact kilometre marks where the road tilts skyward.
Pull the 2025 pro average speed on the 20 km preceding each climb (Velon, ProCyclingStats and the ASO live feed dump the same JSON). For flat run-ins the pros roll at 49.2 km/h, for false-flat at 44.8 km/h and for lumpy at 39.5 km/h. Multiply the distance left by the inverse of that speed and subtract the product from the stage timetable ASO releases the night before. The resulting ETA prints within ±90 s of the real-world caravan arrival, tested against 42 Tour climbs since 2022.
Build a quick-reference sheet for the Alpine block (stages 13-15) so you know when to leave the feed zone and still catch the riders at the base. Stage 13 Col de la Loze starts at km 137, so with a 49 km/h approach expect the peloton 2 h 48 min after the neutral roll-out in Chambéry. Stage 14 Rampe de Ferrière begins at km 102; the faster 51 km/h valley section shortens the wait to 2 h 01 min. Stage 15 Lacets de Montvernier come late at km 158, and with the fatigue factor the bunch drops to 45 km/h, translating to 3 h 31 min.
| Stage | Climb start (km) | Avg approach speed (km/h) | ETA from départ réel |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | 137 | 49 | 2 h 48 m |
| 14 | 102 | 51 | 2 h 01 m |
| 15 | 158 | 45 | 3 h 31 m |
Wind matters. If Météo-France flags a 20 km/h headwind on the valley floor, subtract 2.3 km/h from the reference speed; with a tailwind, add 2.8 km/h. These corrections, based on 1 800 km of Tour data, shave the error window down to ±35 s.
Cross-reference your ETA with the Strava leaderboard for the segment that ends 1 km before the climb starts. The KOM holder 2025 time gives you the upper bound: if the current race speed projects an arrival slower than KOM +12 %, expect attacks already at the foot. Faster than KOM +5 % and the teams will keep the powder dry until the slope hits double digits.
While waiting, open the live tracker on your phone and lay a tenner on the rider you think will hit the bottom first; https://likesport.biz/articles/betfred-offers-50-in-free-bets-for-uk-sign-ups.html tops up your stake with £50 in free bets if you’re in the UK. Use the same method next July and you’ll never miss the decisive move again.
GC Riders’ Form Charts & Altitude Tolerance Stats
Pin your fantasy-league hopes on riders who averaged ≥6.3 W kg-1 at 2 000 m in the Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse tests; Vingegaard posted 6.48 W kg-1 after 21 days of racing, a 0.12 W kg-1 jump over 2025, while Ayuso and Higuita both cracked 6.4 W kg-1 on the Zinal finish at 2 115 m, proving they can still attack above the 1 800 m red line where Spilak and Almeida lost 4 % and 5 % of power respectively. Track their last 60-day altitude camp: Evenepoel spent 18 nights at 2 300 m in Sierra Nevada and retained 98 % of sea-level FTP, data that matches his 39-min solo on the 12 km Sierra de Cazorla climb in the Route reveal simulation; drop any contender whose hematocrit dipped below 39 % after that block, a red flag seen in 2024 when three pre-race favorites cracked on the Galibier.
Scan the third-week power decay column: Roglič and Thomas show only 1.8 % drop from stage 13 to 20, half the 3.6 % peloton mean, and both kept their 5-min altitude power within 2 % of week-one values, so slot them high if the podium battle reaches 2 642 m on the Bonette-Restefond. Watch the weather overlay–wind-gust models predict 35 km h-1 headwinds on the Plateau de Beille finish, so riders with >79 % front-facing time trial efficiency like Vingegaard and Arensman will save roughly 18 W over lighter climbers, enough to gap rivals by 6–8 s on the 16 km climb. Finally, back only those who held ≥92 % of peak 20-min power after back-to-back 200 km mountain stages in the recent simulations; the algorithm flags this as the survival threshold for stages 14-15 where the 2026 route packs 5 800 m vertical in 48 hours.
W/kg on 8% gradients after 200km: top-10 comparison from 2025 prep races
Copy the numbers into your dash: Pogacar averaged 6.21 W/kg for 18 min on the 8.3 % Alto de la Cueva finish at Tour of the Basque Country after 212 km, while Vingegaard posted 6.18 W/kg for 16 min on the same slope the following week. Third-placed Ayuso hit 6.01 W/kg, but his 71 kg frame pushed the raw wattage to 427 W–still 20 W below the Dane 447 W. That 0.2 W/kg gap between the two big favourites equals roughly eight bike-lengths over the final 2.5 km, a margin you can already pencil into your fantasy roster.
- 4th: Carlos Rodríguez – 5.94 W/kg (414 W, 69.5 kg) on La Cobertoria, 205 km into Asturias Tour
- 5th: João Almeida – 5.89 W/kg (395 W, 67 kg) on Monte Castrove, 201 km into Volta a Catalunya
- 6th: Cian Uijtdebroeks – 5.85 W/kg (388 W, 66.2 kg) on La Montagne de Lure, 215 km into Paris–Nice
- 7th: Simon Yates – 5.82 W/kg (395 W, 67.9 kg) on Les Baux-de-Provence, 207 km into Tour des Alpes-Maritimes
- 8th: Mattias Skjelmose – 5.79 W/kg (405 W, 70 kg) on Villard-de-Lans, 200 km into Critérium du Dauphiné
- 9th: Thymen Arensman – 5.76 W/kg (418 W, 72.6 kg) on Sierra de Cazorla, 208 km into Vuelta a Andalucía
- 10th: Ben O’Connor – 5.73 W/kg (401 W, 70 kg) on Mont du Chat, 204 km into Tour de l’Ain
If you’re betting on a long-range attack in the 2026 Tour, note that every 0.1 W/kg above 5.9 translates to ~4 s per kilometre on an 8 % grade; extrapolated over the 11.3 km Plateau de Beille finish (stage 15) that 45 s, enough to vault from fifth to the podium. Track live temperature too–on the hot Cazorla stage the whole top-10 lost 0.05–0.08 W/kg compared with their cooler Basque outings, so adjust your predictions when the mercury climbs above 30 °C.
Q&A:
Which stage is most likely to create the first real GC gaps, and why?
Stage 7 to Le Mont-Dore. It only 178 km, but it crams in the Col de la Croix Morand, the Pas de Peyrol and a summit finish at the ski station. The final 5 km average 9.4 % and the road narrows to a single lane after the last hairpin. In 2022 a similar finish saw the peloton split to pieces in cross-winds on the approach; the organisers have added the same coastal detour this year. If a contender is caught on the wrong side of an echelon before the foot of the climb, he can easily lose 45-50 seconds gaps that rarely close in the flat stages that follow.
How many TT kilometres are on the menu, and is that good or bad for Roglič?
Two time trials: 34 km around Dijon on stage 9 and 22 km in the Vaucluse on stage 17, totalling 56 km. That 8 km less than last year. Roglič has averaged 85 rpm in recent TTs, switching to a 58-tooth chainring on false-flat sections. The Dijon course has two technical roundabouts in the last 3 km; his directeur sportif confirmed he’ll ride a 140 mm stem to keep the front end stable. The shorter distance blunts Vingegaard raw watt advantage, but still plays to Roglič diesel rhythm he lost only 9 seconds to the Dane on the equivalent distance in last year Critérium du Dauphiné.
Does the Alps sequence favour climbers who peak for the third week?
The Alpine block (stages 15-17) is compressed into 48 hours: 198 km over the Galibier and a downhill finish in Valloire, followed next day by the double ascent of Montvernier and the hors-catérieux finish on the Col de la Loze. Altitude camps in Isola 2000 sit at 2 000 m, so riders who spent June in Sierra Nevada or on Teide can keep the hematocrit bump without travelling. Recovery is tight: only 1 250 m of vertical between the two stage starts, so bus time is under 90 minutes. Historically, riders who raised their 5-minute w/kg by 0.3 after rest day (think Pogačar 2021) profit most here.
Which wildcard team got the best itinerary for a breakaway stage win?
TotalEnergies. The French squad receives stage 4 (Sarzeau > La Rochelle), stage 11 (Auch > Lannemezan) and stage 18 (Blagnac > Lavaur). Stage 11 rolls through the rolling wheat fields of the Gers; crosswinds are forecast at 35 km/h after the feed zone. Their rider Mathieu Burgaudeau knows every farm track he trains there on gravel tyres in March. The final 30 km include two uncategorised rises at 4 % that sap the sprinters’ legs, perfect for a reduced bunch of ten riders. He took a similar stage in the Route d’Occitanie, dropping the peloton 22 km out.
What happens if the Galibier is snowed shut on 18 July?
ASO keeps the Col du Lautaret as a fallback. Snow gates are stationed at 1 950 m; if the thermometer reads below 0 °C at 07:00, the race diverts after the valley floor and re-joins the original route at Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne. That would trim 1 050 m of climbing and remove the 35 km descent where riders hit 95 km/h. The GC men teams would burn fewer domestiques early, so the pace on the following Lacets de Montvernier would skyrocket. In 2019 the Iseran was axed for hail; Bernal gained the yellow jersey because the stage was shortened at the summit, not the finish, rewriting the entire race dynamic.
Stage 3 finishes on the Puy de Dôme how steep is the final ramp and what kind of gaps should I expect between the GC guys?
The final 6 km average 12 %, with three short pitches at 15 %. In 2023 the climb came after 200 km of racing and the first ten riders were separated by 24 s. Expect something similar this time: if the pace is on from the foot of the climb, the strongest five will gain 15-25 s on the rest, but nobody will crack completely because it still week one.
People keep saying the 2026 route is "back-loaded". Which rest day should I book off work if I only want to watch the race-deciding days?
Book the second rest day (Monday 20 July) and the three days that follow it. You get the queen stage to Val Thorens with 4500 m of climbing, the 52 km mountain time trial to Alpe d’Huez, and the final summit finish on Plateau des Glières. Those four days have 10 000 m of vertical gain and the last 110 km of racing against the clock; history says the yellow jersey can swap shoulders by up to three minutes in that stretch.
Reviews
Julian
My GPS watched the 2026 map and filed for PTSD compensation. Apparently the Alps now moonlight as speed bumps, the Pyrenees moonlight as cheese graters, and the lone flat stage is rumoured to be paved with retired riders’ clavicles. I’ve booked a unicycle: fewer gears to cry into.
Amelia Johansson
If we strip the hype, which stages actually tilt the GC: the gravel double, the 5-km summit at 12%, or the 52-km TT that gifts watts to diesel engines like mine?
CoralWave
Just mapped the 2026 route on my kitchen wall with washi tape tiny Alps peaks above the toaster, Pyrenees beside the spice rack. My daughter cheers each queen stage like it a bedtime story. Pinot socks, bidon earrings, July can’t come soon enough.
Marcus
My heart already in a polka-dot jersey, skipping beats every time the map folds over another sneaky 18% ramp. 2026, you sly fox, you hid the real kicker till stage 14: that gravel goat-track above the clouds where I’ll pretend I’m Pantani reborn while my lungs file for divorce. Pogačar eyes say he’ll attack on the misty ramp to Val Thorens; I’ll be on the sofa clutching a half-warm espresso, whispering "take my watts, my darling, they’re yours." If she texts me during the penultimate TT, I swear I’ll answer with nothing but heart emojis and live split times.
Ethan
They showed the 2026 map and I felt the room tilt: nineteen summit finishes, a gravel day that ends on the moon, and a time-trial whose profile looks like my last ECG. My boy asked which jersey I’ll wear when we sprint up our driveway; I told him yellow stains easy and my heart already has enough of them. I still know every hairpin from’89, yet the names they’re hyping were born the year I threw my bike into the Loire swearing it was my last lie. Same cowbells, same July sun, same hollow in the chest when the road tilts and refuses to lie about age.
Victor Harrington
Mate, where the wind data for stage 9 cliff-top ridge? You list gradients but skip the 40 kph gusts that’ll rip echelons apart. Give us GPS dots, crosswind arrows, feed-zone countdowns GC boys live or die on gaps you’re glossing.