Tour De France 2026 - Key Stages & Overview

This is Tadej Pogacar, the rider who is probably en route to becoming the greatest cyclist of all

time. Can he win the 2026 Tour de France though? To do so he'll need to beat riders who have got

the better of him in the past and are currently riding stronger than ever, as well as besting

the new kids on the block, one of which has already been labelled as Pogacar's successor

Well, whether he's ready or not, the biggest cycling race in the world is here

And here's everything that you need to know about it. The Tour de France 2026 begins on Saturday 4th July

and this year marks the 130th edition of the flagship race. As usual, it will last for three weeks with 21 stages

seven flat, four hilly, eight mountainous, including five summit finishes to hammer home any advantage

Last year was a rare case of the Tour de France being raced entirely in France

but this year the race starts in Barcelona before crossing the border into the French Pyrenees on stage 4

We'll take a look at the 21 stage route including some of the key stages and the return of an old favourite in just a minute

But first, make sure you're subscribed and let's take a look at some of the favourites

The 2026 Tour is the third most mountainous route in the last 20 years

so it's safe to say that it's one for the climbers. Sorry, Remco. We'll get on to the other jersey contenders later on

but first, let's take a look at who's most likely to bring home the yellow jersey

and the general classification win. Well, as the title suggests, reigning champion and current world champion Tade Pogaccia

comes into the 2026 edition as the hot favourite, off the back of a dominant display at the Tour de Swiss and Spring Classics

His main rival for the yellow jersey will surely be Jonas Vingegaard of Bismarck Leeds the bike

and there's plenty of climbs on the route where Wingergaard has come out on top of Pogaccia in the past

Wingergaard showed excellent form at the Giro d'Italia, but will be without the help of trusty diastiques such as Wout van Aert, Christophe Laporte

and potentially Eduardo Affini as well after a nasty crash at the Italian national champs last weekend

Of course, if he does manage to sweep up the win, then there's more than just the jersey on the line

There's also a whole heap of prize money up for grabs. For winning the 2023 edition of the race, Vingegaard collected a total €535,000, a sum which is customarily shared among the team's riders and staff

Also gunning for the yellow jersey will be Remko Ebenopold. He finished third and claimed the best young riders jersey in his Tour de France debut in 2024 and he publicly stated that it his aim to compete with Vingegaard and Pogaccia The Olympic champion will eye taking the yellow jersey on team time trial and is another strong contender for a podium place

but after struggling last year, he's going to need to step it up another gear

to prove he's on the same level as Pog and Vingo. He does have the benefit of a mighty strong team around him

with co-leader Lipovic and Jai Hindley bringing Grand Tour winning experience. Oh, and he's got a new bike, this specialised Tarmac SL9

Arguably the most exciting debut will be for Paul Sexus. Now, Sexus has the weight of expectation on his young shoulders

but he's one of the few riders that has been able to make Pogaccia mouth breathe this season

And at 19 years of age, no one, well, we just don't know where his limit actually is

Potentially expecting a win this year is a stretch ambitious, but stranger things in cycling have happened

and Decathlon CMA CGM are surely hoping for a podium. With Oscar only out, it looks as though net company Ineos won't have the firepower necessary to battle for the GC

But other riders to look out for are Ben O'Connor from J.K. Lula, Juan Ayuso from Little Trek

Richard Carapaz of EF Education First, and of course super domestiques such as Isaac Del Toro and Matteo Jorgensen

Of course, let us know any of your dark horses or predictions down in the comments below

Now, next up, I've picked out five favourites for the green sprinters jersey

Tim Merlier, he's in incredible form at the moment, and he'll be hard to beat in a pure sprint stage

But Jasper Philipsen will be hoping to do just that. He's no stranger to the green jersey and will once again have the assistance of Mathieu van der Poel on lead-out duties

What a hell of a lead-out man. Bini Mgumai is also back to try and reclaim the green jersey and Mads Pedersen and Olav Kuj are also ones to watch

Is it Koi? It might be Koi. Kuj, Koi, Koi. I don't know how you pronounce his name. It's one of those two, I reckon

Oh, and the ASO, the race's organisers, they've basically had to change the way the points work to stop a GC rider, Pogaccia, winning the green jersey as well

There will now be multiple intermediate sprints per stage as well, new for 2026

We've already touched on the white jersey contenders which has worked out in the same way as the yellow jersey

with the cumulative time of all the 21 stages counting minus any bonus seconds for podium finishes on summit finishes

Only riders under the age of 26 are eligible for the jersey and it looks set to be a battle between

Lipovitz Sexus Isaac del Toro Juan Ayuso and let throw Lenny Martinez into the mix as well Now it safe to say that there plenty of young talent looking to leave their mark on this race Now the polka dot jersey is awarded based on points accrued atop each

categorized client and is probably the hardest jersey to predict. That said with five summit

finishes the safe money would probably be on one of the GC favorites. Fingers crossed we do get a

good battle though maybe someone such as Carapaz you might target this rather than the overall

Right, that's the favourites, but what are they up against? Well, before we get into our route ysis, here's how to watch the thing

For UK viewers, the 2026 Tour de France won't be shown live on ITV like in previous years

But there will be a daily highlight show on Channel 5. If you want to watch it live, then TNT Sports and HBO Max are where to go

and they offer subscriptions from £25.99 a month. In the US, you can watch the tour on NBC and Peacock, with plans starting from $10.99

Canadian fans can stream the race via Flow Bikes, which holds the exclusive rights

And if you're in Australia or many European countries, then there's free live coverage, you lucky buggers

However, if you can't access your home Tour de France stream wherever you are, don't miss the race just because of your location

With NordVPN, you can change your virtual location in just one click and unlock your favourite Tour de France stream from almost anywhere in the world

Whether that's SBS, Rye Play or France TV, NordVPN can unlock your stream

Right now, you can get up to 75% off plus three extra months free with the link that we popped in our description

You don't want to miss that. Back to the route. As usual, the Tour de France takes place over 23 days, with 21 of them being race days

The riders get whole two rest days in that, which fall on the second and third Monday of the race

Road stages in the Tour can range from anything between 100k and something like 250k

Sometimes more than that, actually. This year, the shortest road stage is stage 19 at 127.9k, that's from Gap to Alpe d'Huez

and the longest is on stage 13, 205.8 kilometres. The race looks a little bit different to past few years

with a start in northern Spain, plenty of mountains early on in the form of the Pyrenees

and then the usual trip to the Alps before finishing in Paris. Alcduez makes two appearances in this year's edition

with both stage 19 and stage 20 finishing atop the famous mountain

with the latter also earning the crown of Queen stage. Now if you've ridden the Marmot Sportif then the route might look rather familiar

with the Quadrefer, the Telegraph and the Galibier all making an appearance

It does then go up the Ser and then just does the last few hairpins of Alcure In fact I took on this stage a few weeks ago So to see just how hard a Tour de France stage is How the f do they race up this

Vincenzo Nibali. Whole thing out the saddle. Attack the Taddei Bacaccia! You're going to ride together for a bit or you're going to bugger up again

Make sure you're subscribed to the channel as that video is coming soon

In 2026, the Tour has two time trials for the riders to tackle. The first is a team time trial on stage one for the first time since 1971

That's 19 kilometers in length. I used to love watching the team time trial

And this year it could be even more exciting as every rider gets their own individual time

And that means that the super strong riders might kind of use their team as lead out riders rather than reaching the finish as a group

The second time trial will happen on stage 16 to keep the GC riders on their toes at 26 kilometers in length

with the first 10 kilometers of that being a steady climb. Unlike some tours where it can be a bit of a slow start

this year's edition should, it will definitely start with a bang. A GC favorite could well be in yellow from stage one

Then there's a hilly stage on day two. And then it's a mountainous stage on day three

So the GC riders are basically going to have to be on form from start to finish

because, well, you've then got all the hardest stages right at the end of the three years

In fact, the Queen Stage only narrowly misses out on the record of being the hilliest stage ever

So it's about 50 metres short of that. If I had to pick one stage to watch, it probably would be the Alps at the end

But one that might have flown under your radar is Stage 15. It's got an absolutely brutal climb of Plateau de Solisson

which features in the Tour de France for the first time ever. Looking at their 2026 form, it would be easy to think that Pogacar has all the cards

He certainly has a phenomenal team around him and race wins galore

The only question for me is, can he survive three weeks of absolutely relentless elevation gain

Now, it's no secret that Boccaccio was desperate to win Paris-Roubaix. And whilst he didn't manage it, his physique did change as he wiped the floor with just about every other classics this spring

Now, Wienegaard, meanwhile, he's tailored his whole year around the Tour. He's won it twice before

we know he's in Grand Tour winning shape and Vizmolisa Bike said that

his power to weight is better than ever before with 23 teams

184 riders and 3,321 kilometres the next three weeks are sure to write some stories

let us know any of your predictions down below and look out for lots more Tour de France content

on the Cycling Weekly channel and Instagram enjoy it and we'll see you in the thick of it