For the first time in years, the Tour de France route presented earlier today is not built around the climbs that have carried Tadej Pogacar to five yellow jerseys.
ASO director Christian Prudhomme laid out the 114th edition at the Palais des Congrès in Paris: 3,479 kilometres from Edinburgh to the Champs-Élysées, two individual time trials totalling 71 kilometres, and three mountain-top finishes. It is the biggest total against the clock the race has carried since 2012, and the clearest answer yet to the Slovenian who in July became the fifth rider to win five Tours.
The race starts on 2 July in Edinburgh, the first Grand Départ held in Scotland. Stage 1 rolls out from the Palace of Holyroodhouse and runs through the Royal Mile and Princes Street before heading south to Carlisle. Stage 2 covers 223 kilometres from Keswick to Liverpool, and Stage 3 crosses from Welshpool to Cardiff. Three full days on British roads before the race transfers to Normandy.
“We are thrilled to welcome the Tour de France Grand Départ to Edinburgh,” Lord Provost Robert Aldridge said when the host city was confirmed. “With our winding cobbled streets and iconic backdrop, the city provides a dramatic, challenging, and undeniably picturesque start to this legendary race.”
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Prudhomme pushes back on the anti-Pogacar reading
The route rewards time-trial specialists more than anything the Tour has produced in a decade. Stage 7 runs 38 kilometres from Blois to Chambord, and Stage 16 adds another 33 kilometres around Toulouse the day before the Pyrenees open up. Remco Evenepoel, who finished second to Pogacar at the 2026 Tour, has the clearest claim to the extra minutes those stages will produce.
Prudhomme was asked directly whether the design was aimed at the Slovenian.
“We never design a course for or against a rider,” he told French media.
“The difficulty is that, whatever the terrain, Tadej Pogačar is very strong. On the climbs, obviously, but not only. His descent of the Col du Tourmalet last year was absolutely phenomenal. You include cobblestones and he’s at the front, you make it harder and he’s there, you make it a little easier and he attacks from further out.”
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Queen stage climbs the Soulor, Tourmalet and Col du Portet
The race climbs 53,450 metres in total, with mountain-top finishes at Grand Colombier on Stage 9, Les Saisies on Stage 11 and the Col du Portet on Stage 18.
Stage 18 is the queen stage. Over 174 kilometres the peloton will cross the Soulor, the Tourmalet and the Hourquette d’Ancizan before dragging up to the Col du Portet at 2,215 metres, the highest point of the race, for 5,400 metres of climbing in a single day.
Men’s and women’s Tours both start in Britain
The 2027 edition also marks the first time both the men’s and women’s Tours start in the same country outside France. The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift begins in Leeds on 30 July and runs stages through Manchester, the Peak District, Sheffield and London under director Marion Rousse.
“The United Kingdom has played an important role in the history of women’s cycling, with champions such as Lizzie Deignan,” Rousse said when the women’s route was outlined in January.
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The men’s race reaches Paris on 25 July, with Stage 21 climbing the Butte Montmartre three times before the Champs-Élysées, the final ascent coming 10 kilometres from the finish line.
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