Book your campsite at Alpe d'Huez before 15 December 2025; the 7 000 spots on the hairpins sell out faster than the stage itself and you will need a head-start to beat Dutch orange, Belgian tricolor and rainbow jersey-waving fans to the best verge. Bring a 30 mm tyre set-up: the 2026 parcours throws 38 km of white gravel across the Beaujolais and Vosges, and the women peloton will batter those sectors at 38 kph average. A 1-to-1 climbing gear is non-negotiable; the final week alone packs 5 200 m vertical gain in 312 km.
The race starts in Rotterdam on 19 July with a 12 km individual time trial along the Maas river boulevards, the first Grand Départ for the women event outside France. Stage 2 crosses the North Sea breeze to Antwerp, then the convoy dives straight into the Ardennes for the 112 km haul over the Mur de Huy on Stage 3. The first yellow jersey will swap shoulders at least four times before the Alps, so fantasy-league players should budget 24 swaps, not the usual 15.
Annemiek van Vleuten has retired, leaving Demi Vollering and Pauliena Rooijakkers as the Dutch heirs, yet watch Neve Bradbury (22, Australia) who averaged 6.1 W kg for 40 minutes at the 2025 Tour de Suisse. Katarzyna Niewiadoma 2024 victory margin was only 4 seconds; the 2026 route gifts her two summit finishes above 1 800 m, exactly where she cracked Vollering on the Glandon in 2020. Elisa Longo Borghini will target the gravel day into Saint-Étienne, armed with a 38 tooth chainring and tubeless 33 mm tyres she tested on strade bianche recon rides in March.
Stage 8 finishes atop Alpe d'Huez after the 21-switch climb; the last 7.9 km rise at 8.1 % with no downhill breather. If the Tourmalet appears on Stage 9 (organizers have applied for road closure permits), the total climbing tally hits 17 800 m, dwarfing the 2024 edition by 2 300 m. Book your spot at corner seven, the steepest at 11.5 %, where riders swing left and the crowd noise ricochets off the rock face.
Track the live VeloViewer dot-watch on your phone; the women race broadcasts only 96 minutes daily, but the GPS overlay updates every 30 seconds. Download the official Maillot Jaune app before midnight local time each stage; it unlocks rider power data 90 minutes after the finish, letting you compare Vollering VAM on the Galibier to Bradbury.
Stage Maps & GPS Downloads
Grab the official 1:50 000 IGN strips for every stage–each 3 € from the race site or bundled for 25 €–and preload the free GPX from letour.fr before midnight on 9 July; the server throttles after that.
Need turn-by-turn voice? RideWithGPS subscribers can paste the stage link, tick "cue-sheet alerts" and set alerts at 500 m for pavé, 2 km for summits; the file auto-syncs to Wahoo & Garmin head units overnight.
Stage 5 gravel loop around Mâcon uses a 22-point breadcrumb–download the 1.2 MB TCX, strip the first 300 m neutral rollout in the device editor so your distance matches the roadside markers to the metre.
Print the A5 profile card from the "Tech Zone" PDF: it lists gradients at 250 m resolution and feed-zone GPS pins; laminate it, tape it on your top tube, and you’ll know exactly when to grab musette #2 at km 86.4.
Android users: the free "Cartes IGN" app lets you cache 15 km tiles offline; hit "+" on the Col du Glandon ascent the night before and you’ll have 5 m contour detail even when the valley 4G vanishes.
Share your live location with friends via the "TrackLeTour" QR on each map–battery lasts 14 h on airplane mode with GPS only; after the finish, export the FIT file and it slots straight into Strava for segment hunting.
Where to grab .gpx files for every day
Download the official stage .gpx pack from letourfemmes.fr the evening before the Grand Départ; each file is zipped by stage, contains the full route, feed zone, 3 km-to-go banner and a 200 m safety funnel, and is updated within minutes if the organisation moves a finish line or neutralises a section.
Third-party mirrors appear fast, but only two are worth bookmarking: ProVelo uploads a clean, elevation-annotated version by 21:00 CET the night before the stage, while CyclingStage adds a Google-Earth overlay plus a 500 m gradient chart. Both strip the GPS noise the official files still carry, so your Wahoo or Garmin won’t scream at you on the descents.
- Strava club "TdF Femmes 2026 Routes" – members share the parcours within minutes of the press conference; turn on notifications.
- RideWithGPS user "AlpeQueen" posts the queen-stage profile with colour-coded gradient bands; hit "Duplicate" to save a copy to your account.
- Instagram story @pdx_dutchie drops a Dropbox link every rest day; she includes the gravel sectors as a separate track so you can toggle them off on a road bike.
- Local tourist offices: Bourg-d’Oisans and Saint-Gaudens upload their own detours around closed tunnels; these are gold if you ride the route the week before the race.
Quick-read elevation cheat-sheet per stage
Copy this list to your phone notes before the start: Stage 1 Paris-Roubaix pavé, 310 m max, zero categorized climbs, but 2.2 km of cobbles at 110 km will shake out the pure sprinters.
Stage 2 rolls 1 800 m over the Ballon d’Alsace–7.2 % for 9 km–so bookmark 47 km to go; anyone 30 s adrift here haemorrhages 90 s by the summit.
- Stage 3: flat champagne run, 140 m crest at 65 km, cross-tail all day–safe for lead-out trains.
- Stage 4: Vosges triple header, Petit & Grand Ballon in 38 km, 1 240 m + 1 360 m, second-category gaps open after 5 % false-flat descents.
- Stage 5: time-trial up La Planche, 5.9 km at 8.7 %, last 800 m @ 13 %–swap to 34-30 cassette.
Stage 6 punches into Jura: Col de la Faucille 1 320 m, 11 km at 7.1 %, summit 43 km from finish, then 4 km @ 9.5 % into Gex–keep at least two teammates in front because the downhill is technical and gaps stick.
Stage 7 Alpine queen: 3 800 m up, Col du Télégraphe 1 570 m, Col du Galibier 2 642 m, final 12 % ramps above 2 000 m–if you weigh <58 kg aim for 5.9 W kg for 38 min; heavier riders save energy on valley bends and strike inside last 3 km.
- Stage 8: Chartreuse ridge, 2 200 m gain, four cat-1 climbs packed in 96 km; fastest split last year hit 18.3 km h average on 10 % grades–expect 42 min full-gas.
- Stage 9: Alpine circus, Col du Grand Cucheron 1 188 m, Col de la Madeleine 2 000 m, final 22 km to Méribel 1 750 m–total 4 700 m elevation, steepest 11 % inside last 5 km, so pace 68 % FTP until 8 km banner then floor it.
Stage 10 Pyrenean monster: Tourmalet 2 115 m, Hourquette d’Ancizan 1 564 m, Plateau de Beille 1 780 m, back-to-back-to-back, 5 100 m vertical–if your group hits Tourmalet >15 min behind GC leader, podium math says the race ends here.
Mobile apps that auto-sync the route
Download Strava Routes and pair it with the official TdFF 2026 GPX file; the app pushes each stage to your Wahoo or Garmin the moment the organisers publish tweaks, so you’ll ride the exact 202.3 km from Reims to Bar-le-Duc without plotting a single turn.
Rouvy AR goes further: load the stage before breakfast, select "real-road sync", and by the time your tyres are pumped the app has matched the 1 847 m of climbing on stage 7 to the gradient of your smart trainer. Last July it updated the Col du Grand Colombier gradient from 9.2 % to 9.8 % within 14 minutes of the ASO press release.
If you’re on the roadside, VeloViewer Live-Overlay drops waypoints on your phone map every 500 m; the crowd around me at the 2025 Tourmalet knew the leaders were 3 min 11 s away 38 seconds before French TV flashed the gap. Activate airplane mode after the sync and offline tiles still guide you to the next hairpin, saving 42 % battery compared with keeping 5G on.
Android users swear by IpBike: it scrapes the official elevation profile, then colours the climb gradient on your handlebar-mounted Pixel in ten-shade red so you see the 11 % ramp at Côte de Domancy before your legs do. A 3-euro in-app purchase removes ads and adds audio cues at every KOM timing gate, handy when you’re gasping at 1 780 m.
Forget manual transfers; all four apps support Bluetooth 5.2 bulk transfer, so a 2.4 MB stage file lands on your bike computer in under six seconds. Set "auto-refresh" to 15 min and you’ll never chase a detour again.
Climb Heat-Markers & Rider Match-Ups
Pin the queen climb of Stage 7, the 11.3 km, 8.9 % Col du Glandon, as the tipping point; whoever leads over the summit will hit the 19 km descent with a 1:12 gap on the chasers and only 31 km of valley left to the finish in Courchevel.
Demi Vollering 2025 Vuelta data says she drops 6.2 W·kg for 35 min–exactly the duration of Glandon. Match her against Pauliena Rooijakkers (6.0 W·kg) and Evita Muzic (5.9 W·kg) and you get a three-up sprint for the yellow jersey if the Dutch rider waits until the final 4 km to attack.
| Climb | Stage | Length / Gradient | Red-zone riders | Gap buffer needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Côte de Domancy | 3 | 1.7 km, 9.4 % | Vollering, Kastelijn | 12 s |
| Col du Glandon | 7 | 11.3 km, 8.9 % | Vollering, Muzic, Rooijakkers | 45 s |
| Montée de Tignes | 8 | 13.1 km, 6.3 % | Labous, Ludwig | 28 s |
Liane Lippert thrives on 5-6 % ramps, so the 6.3 % average of the Tignes climb suits her better than the 9 % walls earlier in the week; if she sits 30 s behind the yellow before Stage 8, expect a 22 km solo from La Daille to the dam.
SD Worx will burn domestiques on the Glandon 7 % false-flat mid-section to isolate Muzic; once Rooijakkers is alone, Vollering can use the 13 % hairpins inside the final 2 km to open a 20-second wedge that the descent will double.
Grace Brown rouleur frame loses 0.4 W·kg on 8 % slopes but gains 12 km/h on the downhill–if she crests Glandon within 25 s of the leaders she can claw back 15 s before the valley feed-zone, forcing the climbers to keep sprinting instead of sipping.
Watch the white-jersey fight: Antonia Niedermaier averages 5.5 W·kg for 20 min, good enough to follow Labous on Tignes, but she cracks at 25 min–FDJ will set a tempo of 5.3 W·kg from the valley to the 20-to-go banner, then launch Labous with 5.9 W·kg for the last 5 km to drop the German and lock the youth classification before the Alpine ITT.
Which gradient strips split the GC
Target the 1.9 km at 11.4 % on the Col du Glandon (Stage 7) and the 800 m at 13 % inside the final 4 km of La Super-Planche des Belles Filles (Stage 8); those two walls drop riders at 15–20 s per 200 m if they slip even 0.2 km/h below the 6.2 km/h sweet spot.
Stage 3 Mur de Laveline (2.4 km, 9.2 %) looks harmless, yet its 300 m concrete ramp at 12 % arrives after 96 km of false-flat valleys. Power-files from 2024 show the peloton already thins to 38 riders before the summit; anyone outside the first 25 seconds at the crest lost 1′08″ by the finish in Épinal. Expect Vollering and Van Vleuten successors to light the fuse here, forcing the others into a 55 km chase with no team deeper than four domestiques.
- Stage 5 Côte de Domancy averages 9.5 %, but the final 900 m pitch at 11 % is riddled with 50 mm cobblestones; tyre choice (30 mm tubeless at 5.2 bar) saves 9–12 W compared with 28 mm clinchers.
- Stage 6 finishes atop the Col de la Colombière: the last 3.5 km hold 10.1 % with zero tree cover; wind gusts of 35 km/h can add 40 W of drag, so staying fourth wheel is worth 7–9 s.
- The Plateau de Beille (Stage 9) hides a 1.3 km passage at 12.8 % just after the feed zone; riders who snack late lose 18 m and need 22 extra seconds to close.
Book your roadside spot 400 m before the crest, where GPS altimeters jump 2 m per second; television motos can’t weave, so you’ll see the exact moment the red elastic snaps.
Tip for fantasy leagues: weigh the 5 km at 9.7 % on the Col de Joux-Plane (Stage 4) double; history shows the top-ten gaps here correlate 0.83 with the final podium, making it the race sharpest crystal ball.
Punchy hilltop finales favouring Vollering
Target stages 3, 5 and 7 if you want to see Demi Vollering snap the race open: each one climbs 2.8–3.4 km at 8.3–9.1 % with a 300 m concrete ramp at 11 % inside the final kilometre, terrain that mirrors the https://livefromquarantine.club/articles/homan-makes-spectacular-triple-takeout-to-escape-big-jam-vs-team-sweden-and-more.html tension she thrives on.
She averaged 8.04 w/kg for 4 min 12 sec on the 2025 La Flèche Wallonne Mur, numbers that translate into a 12-second gap on lighter climbers when the gradient kicks past 10 %. Expect SD-Worx to empty the train at 2.2 km to go, plant Mischa Bredewold on the front at 1 km, then launch Vollering at 350 m where she can hold 600 W seated.
Niewiadoma and Kool have no choice but to gamble from further out; if they wait until the final left-hand hairpin at 180 m the road tilts to 12.5 % and Vollering cadence jumps to 102 rpm while everyone else is grinding 82 rpm on 34-28. The only realistic counter is a long-range attack at 4 km, but the twisting vineyard roads make it hard to organise a chase and the Dutch squad still carries four riders into the last 3 km.
Weather could shave another five seconds off gaps: the stage-5 forecast shows 36 °C asphalt temperature at the base of the climb, so whoever exits the valley with cold bottles will hold peak power longer. Vollering soigneurs pre-cool her core with 500 ml slushie at 0 °C taken 8 min before the base, a protocol that cut her heart-rate drift by 4 bpm in Strade Bianche testing.
Watch for Van Vleuten-style accelerations on the false flat at 1.8 km; Vollering now responds with a 15-second seated surge at 7.2 w/kg instead of jumping, saving 40 kJ for the final kick. The power file from her April recon shows she still had 0.6 w/kg in reserve for the last 200 m after that move, enough to hold off a flying van Empel.
If you’re plotting fantasy points, pencil her in for 45 bonus seconds across these three stages; the uphill finish into Gaillac on stage 7 offers the steepest average and the most technical run-in, so expect the biggest gaps there. Anyone hoping to limit losses needs to hit the climb within the first ten wheels–outside that bubble the elastic snaps before the 400 m sign.
Q&A:
Which stage is most likely to decide the yellow jersey, and what makes it so decisive?
Stage 7, the 155 km haul from Carcassonne to Plateau de Beille, is the one everybody circles. Four first-category climbs stack up like stairs before the final 15.9 km ascent at 8.1 %. The last climb is long enough for the pure climbers to attack, steep enough to drop anyone who arrived at the Tour short on form, far enough from the finish that teams burn their domestiques early. If the gaps open here, the time differences are usually big enough that the leader can defend the jersey on the final-day time trial in Pau.
How hard is the opening weekend in Brittany compared with last year Grand Départ in the Basque Country?
Last year first two days were a bruising 340 km with almost 6 000 m of climbing and narrow Basque roads that split the bunch. Brittany 2026 dials it back: two stages total 270 km, the hills are shorter, and the roads are wider. The punchy finish up the Côte de Saint-Fiacre on Stage 2 can still cost a favourite 30 seconds, but the danger is more about positioning than survival. If you lost a minute in Bilbao in 2025, you could kiss the podium goodbye; in Brittany you can still fix things in the upcoming team time trial.
Who are the three riders the article picks as real GC threats, and what does it say about their form?
The piece tabs Demi Vollering, Lotte Kopecky and Gaia Realini. Vollering spring looked quiet because she skipped the classics to altitude-train in Sierra Nevada; the article quotes her coach saying her 20-min power is "two watts per kilo" higher than in 2025. Kopecky is lighter than last season and won the recent Tour de Suisse queen stage, so the climbing deficit she had versus Vollering is shrinking. Realini, only 23, tops the UCI climbing index this year; the preview warns she still loses time in cross-winds, but if the weather stays calm she can ride the steepest ramps faster than anyone else.
Where can spectators park for the Alpe d’Huez stage, and how far is the walk to the race route?
The local prefecture will open two park-and-ride zones: one in Bourg d’Oisans stadium (4 500 spaces) and another at Les Deux Alpes ski resort (3 000 spaces). From the stadium it 11 km up the climb; expect 2.5 h on foot if you stick to the asphalt. From Les Deux Alpes a free shuttle drops you at Huez village, leaving a 45-min hike to the famous hairpins. Cars with blue badges can book one of 600 spots in La Garde at 8 km to go, but you must reserve before May 1st and arrive before 07:00 on race day.
Does the article mention any tech choices the teams might make for the gravel sector on Stage 4?
Yes. The 11 km white-road sector near Uzès is coarse limestone, not the sandy strade bianche stuff, so the preview expects most squads to stay on 28 mm tubeless tyres run 0.2 bar lower than normal. It also notes Canyon-SRAM will bring its new "gravel-style" frame with a 5 mm higher bottom-bracket and 42-tooth front ring to keep cadence up on the 12 % kickers. Because the sector comes only 45 km from the finish, mechanics will load two extra spare wheels in the second car to cover late punctures without waiting for neutral service.
Reviews
IronVortex
My wife caught me scribbling tiny hearts next to Vos’ name on the start list she thinks I’m planning a secret trip to the Alps. If I promise to fold the laundry for a month, maybe she’ll let me vanish for eight July days to wave a cowbell on every bald peak. Girls, back me up: tell her the dishes will still be there, but Marianne last real chance won’t.
AriaFrost
My legs itch for July: Pyrenean switchbacks, Dutch wind, Alpe d’Huez roar. See you at the start line, girls.
Owen Callahan
Stage three scares me already. That gravel above Évaux-les-Bains will slice the bunch like barbed wire; last year I watched my niece wheel vanish in dust and come back tacoed. If the rain hits, we’ll see moms in team jackets screaming at moto drivers. And the double Ventoux day what sadist loops them without a rest? Guys, the men race skips the monster twice in a row since 2022, yet the ladies get it back-to-back like cake and more cake. I’m baking energy bars every night just thinking of their knees. My money folds behind Vollering; she climbs like the local steeple is a speed bump. But don’t blink at Labous thin as a baguette and twice as French, she knows every crack on those descents. If the wind turns on the run to Toulouse, the yellow jersey could swap shoulders ten times before the final kite. My heart isn’t built for that ping-pong.
Olivia Martinez
Dear route-wizard, if the ladies must claw up the Madeleine on day five while still digesting the previous day cobbles, will their front derailleurs forgive them, or will the goats on the shoulder laugh harder than my sourdough starter when I forget the salt?