The Tour de France. Le Tour. The 'yellow one!' Whatever you call it, the biggest race in cycling is back and it's destined to be another legendary edition. Expect five mountain ranges, a double Alpe d'Huez, roadside picnics and a nation holding its breath.
Now it's important to state that this is no ordinary cycling event. It has an illustrious history stretching back 123 years (circa 2026), and as the largest free-to-watch annual sporting event on earth, it draws over 10 million fans to the roadside every July. That said, if you're new to the sport or the event then don't worry about some of the complexities. We'll cover everything you need to know in this article.
New to Grand Tour racing? Start with the primer — What is a Grand Tour? — then come back for the 2026 Tour in full.
The 2026 Tour is the 113th edition of the race, and only the third time in its history the Grande Boucle has rolled out from Spain — San Sebastián opened the 1992 Tour, Bilbao started the 2023 edition, and now Barcelona joins the list. The Catalan capital hosts a 19.7 kilometre team time trial on day one: the first time the Tour has opened with a TTT since 1971. From there the race crosses into France for what's been billed as the hardest opening week in modern Tour history, then works its way across five mountain ranges — the Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Jura, the Vosges and the Alps — before the final stage into Paris on Sunday 26 July.
It's a route built 'in crescendo', in the words of race director Christian Prudhomme. Thirty major categorised climbs, six of them new to the race. Just one individual time trial, placed deep in week three. Eight mountain stages with five summit finishes: Gavarnie-Gèdre in the Pyrenees, Plateau de Solaison, Orcières-Merlette, and then the headline act — Alpe d'Huez twice, on consecutive days. That has never happened in 113 editions of this race. Stage 19 takes the classic route up the 21 hairpins. Stage 20 is the queen stage of the year: Col de la Croix de Fer, the Télégraphe, the mighty Galibier at 2,642 metres (the roof of the race), the narrow Col de Sarenne, and then the Alpe one final time. Over 5,600 metres of climbing in a single day. The Tour will be won — or lost — right there.
And then Paris. After the roaring success of 2025, the final stage once again sends the peloton over the cobbled climb of Montmartre — three times — before the traditional sprint on the Champs-Élysées. A finale that's no longer entirely ceremonial. Someone in yellow will still need to keep their elbows out.
The contenders going in: Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) is the favourite: the world champion is chasing a record-equalling fifth Tour title, and his spring suggests he's lost none of his edge. The man most likely to stop him is Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike), arriving straight off a dominant Giro d'Italia win and attempting the Giro–Tour double. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) brings the best time trial in the world to a route with only one. And keep an eye on Paul Seixas, the 19-year-old French prodigy making his Tour debut. The sprinters' line-up is led by Jonathan Milan, Tim Merlier, Jasper Philipsen and Paul Magnier.
The second of the Grand Tours kicks off in early July, lasting for 3 weeks with 21 race days and 2 rest days (this year on the 13th and 20th of July). The race for the Maillot Jaune wraps up in Paris on the final Sunday of the month, and the Vuelta a España follows about a month later in August.
No surprises here - the Tour is hosted all over France! But there are some key regions that tend to be included regularly. Look out for the Pyrenees and the Alps for the high mountains, the Massif Central, Vosges and Jura for the punchy middle weeks, and of course the final day on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Occasionally the opening few days are held outside of France, and in 2026 the first three stages are in Catalonia, Spain.
184 riders across 23 Teams (so 8 riders per team), will ride 3,333km with over 54,000 vertical metres of climbing. Gulp...
Whilst the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and La Vuelta are incredibly different, varied and with their own histories & cultures... Today they all have exactly the same framework for competition - with 184 riders, across 23 teams of 8. They are also equally distanced at approximately 3,500km. One thing that sets 2026 apart though: at 54,450 vertical metres, this Tour out-climbs this year's Giro by a full 5,000 metres. It's one of the toughest routes ever drawn.
Twenty-one stages, but only a handful settle the yellow jersey. These are the days to clear your afternoon for.
| Stage | Date | Route | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sat 4 Jul | Barcelona — team time trial | First TTT since 1971. GC gaps from day one. |
| 6 | Thu 9 Jul | Pau → Gavarnie-Gèdre | First summit finish, over the Tourmalet. |
| 15 | Sun 19 Jul | Champagnole → Plateau de Solaison | New climb, brutal gradients — a pre-rest-day trap. |
| 16 | Tue 21 Jul | Évian → Thonon-les-Bains | The only individual time trial. Just 26km. |
| 18 | Thu 23 Jul | Voiron → Orcières-Merlette | Summit finish — opens the final Alpine block. |
| 19 | Fri 24 Jul | Gap → Alpe d'Huez | Alpe d'Huez and its 21 hairpins. Short, explosive. |
| 20 | Sat 25 Jul | Le Bourg-d'Oisans → Alpe d'Huez | Queen stage. 5,600m of climbing. Won or lost here. |
| 21 | Sun 26 Jul | Thoiry → Paris | Montmartre ×3, then the Champs-Élysées. |
Highlighted: the two Alpe d'Huez stages — back-to-back summit finishes on the same climb, a first in Grand Tour history, and where the 2026 Tour will be won.
| # | Date | Route | km | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sat 4 Jul | Barcelona – Barcelona | 19.7 | Team time trial |
| 2 | Sun 5 Jul | Tarragona – Barcelona | 168.5 | Hilly |
| 3 | Mon 6 Jul | Granollers – Les Angles | 195.9 | Mountain |
| 4 | Tue 7 Jul | Carcassonne – Foix | 181.9 | Hilly |
| 5 | Wed 8 Jul | Lannemezan – Pau | 158.3 | Flat |
| 6 | Thu 9 Jul | Pau – Gavarnie-Gèdre | 186.2 | Mountain · summit finish |
| 7 | Fri 10 Jul | Hagetmau – Bordeaux | 175.1 | Flat |
| 8 | Sat 11 Jul | Périgueux – Bergerac | 180.4 | Flat |
| 9 | Sun 12 Jul | Malemort – Ussel | 185.5 | Hilly |
| Mon 13 Jul | Rest day | |||
| 10 | Tue 14 Jul | Aurillac – Le Lioran | 166.6 | Hilly |
| 11 | Wed 15 Jul | Vichy – Nevers | 161.3 | Flat |
| 12 | Thu 16 Jul | Magny-Cours – Chalon-sur-Saône | 179.1 | Flat |
| 13 | Fri 17 Jul | Dole – Belfort | 205.8 | Hilly |
| 14 | Sat 18 Jul | Mulhouse – Le Markstein | 155.3 | Mountain |
| 15 | Sun 19 Jul | Champagnole – Plateau de Solaison | 183.9 | Mountain · summit finish |
| Mon 20 Jul | Rest day | |||
| 16 | Tue 21 Jul | Évian-les-Bains – Thonon-les-Bains | 26.1 | Individual time trial |
| 17 | Wed 22 Jul | Chambéry – Voiron | 174.7 | Flat |
| 18 | Thu 23 Jul | Voiron – Orcières-Merlette | 185.2 | Mountain · summit finish |
| 19 | Fri 24 Jul | Gap – Alpe d'Huez | 127.9 | Mountain · summit finish |
| 20 | Sat 25 Jul | Le Bourg-d'Oisans – Alpe d'Huez | 170.9 | Mountain · queen stage |
| 21 | Sun 26 Jul | Thoiry – Paris | 133.0 | Flat |
In the UK, the 2026 Tour is live on TNT Sports (streamed on HBO Max), with free highlights nightly on Channel 5 at 7pm. It's the first year without ITV, whose run with the Tour ended in 2025.
Watch every stage: TNT Sports / HBO Max — subscription.
Watch for free: Channel 5 highlights, 7pm nightly through July.
Just like the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France has its roots in the world of newspapers. Way back in 1903 there was a notable lack of internet availability, and so people got their daily dose of news from the papers. A sports daily called 'L'Auto' was locked in a circulation war with its rival 'Le Vélo', and a young journalist named Géo Lefèvre pitched a mad idea over lunch: a race around the whole of France, the longest and hardest ever staged. His editor Henri Desgrange went for it, and the Tour was born. But the coolest thing to know is that L'Auto was printed on yellow paper, and this is where the famous Maillot Jaune / Yellow Jersey (for the GC leader) was derived from — first awarded in 1919 so the fans could spot the race leader on the road.
If the Giro is famed for its chaos, the Tour is famed for its sheer scale. This is the biggest annual sporting event in the world — broadcast to around 190 countries, with over 10 million fans lining the roads across the three weeks. And every single one of them watches for free. There's no ticket, no turnstile, no stadium. Just a mountainside, a picnic, and a wall of noise when the race comes past. One minute of racing, six hours of atmosphere — and somehow it's still worth every second.
Then there's everything around the race. The publicity caravan — a 10km parade of sponsor floats that rolls through ahead of the peloton, hurling free caps and keyrings at the crowds. The campervans that stake out hairpins on the Alpe a full week early. Bastille Day, when every French rider in the race goes up the road with the hopes of an entire nation on their back. For three weeks in July, France doesn't just host the Tour - France is the Tour. In the face of such scale, such history, and such joy from the roadside - it's almost impossible not to get caught up in the yellow whirlwind year after year!
For the General Classification:
This is all about finishing the stages as quickly as possible. The winner of the first stage becomes the leader of the General Classification ('GC') and is awarded the Yellow Jersey to wear the next day. From there everyone's times are recorded and added up day-by-day, giving each rider a total riding time. Whoever has the lowest time at the end of each stage wins for that day, and is awarded the Yellow Jersey (Maillot Jaune) to wear the next day. To spice things up there are also bonus seconds awarded for crossing certain sections first.
For the Points Classification:
Is focused on winning & accumulating points through each of the 21 stages. The points scoring system can be a bit complicated, but the key thing to know is that flat finishes carry the biggest hauls, so the Green Jersey almost always ends up on the back of a sprinter. Points are also up for grabs at the intermediate sprint placed in every road stage. Whoever has the highest points score at the end of each race wins the stage points, and is awarded the Green Jersey (Maillot Vert) to wear the next day.
For the Mountains Classification:
This one focuses on the Climbers, awarding points for the first group of riders to cross Classified Climbs (registered as a certain difficulty and allocated with points as part of the race planning). Tour climbs are graded from Category 4 (the easiest) up to Category 1 and then 'Hors Catégorie' — beyond categorisation — for monsters like the Galibier and Alpe d'Huez. Whoever has the highest Mountain Points score at the end of each race wins the stage points, and is awarded the famous Polka Dot Jersey (Maillot à Pois) to wear the next day.
For the Best Young Rider:
This is another version of the General Classification competition, but reserved for riders under 25 at the start of the year. Fun fact: Tadej Pogačar has won the White and Yellow jerseys together three times.
This is the fastest Team overall. It is calculated by combining the top 3 finishers of each team, each day across the 21 stages. Whichever team has the lowest time overall wins, and the leading team wears yellow race numbers (and often yellow helmets) so you can spot them in the bunch.
There is one of these in every road stage, offering Green Jersey points and bonus seconds part-way through the day. They keep the sprinters' teams working and encourage breakaways on every stage.
Awarded after every stage to the day's most aggressive rider — usually someone who spent hours in the breakaway. The winner gets a red bib number to wear the next day.
The big brother of the daily award: given to the most combative rider of the entire three weeks, and presented on the podium in Paris on the final day.
A cash prize for the first rider over the highest point of the entire race, named after the Tour's founding father. In 2026 that's the mighty Col du Galibier at 2,642 metres — crested on the queen stage to Alpe d'Huez. Expect an all out brawl for this one!
The sister prize, awarded to the first rider over the summit of the legendary Col du Tourmalet, in memory of the Tour's second director. The Tourmalet features on stage 6 in 2026, on the road to Gavarnie-Gèdre.
Not an official prize at all - but the rider who finishes last on GC in Paris is known as the 'Lanterne Rouge' (the red lantern, after the light on the back of a train). Simply making it to Paris is an achievement, and the Lanterne Rouge is celebrated as a cult hero rather than commiserated. We love that.
The Tour de France Femmes relaunched in 2022 and runs in early August, the week after the men's race — and in 2025 it delivered a French winner on home roads for the first time. Magnifique.
And here's the kicker: despite leading the all-time table with 36 wins, France hasn't had a home winner since Bernard Hinault way back in 1985. Forty-one years of hurt — and a 19-year-old named Paul Seixas now carrying the hopes of a nation.
Overall and stage wins at the Tour are career-defining. Only four men have ever won it five times — Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain — and Tadej Pogačar, on four going into 2026, has the chance to join them in Paris this July.
The stage-wins record belongs to Mark Cavendish, whose 35th in 2024 finally edged past Merckx's mark of 34 — a record many thought would never fall. Three names, though, cast a longer shadow over this race than any others:
The Cannibal. The most complete rider who ever lived — he attacked everywhere, all the time, and won everything in sight. His 96 days in the yellow jersey is a record no one since has come close to.
The Badger. Five Tours, and one of the hardest men ever to race a bike: combative, intimidating, impossible to drop. Also the last Frenchman to win his home Tour, back in 1985.
The Manx Missile. No rider in history has won more Tour de France stages - his 35th in 2024 finally edged past Eddy Merckx's 34, a record many had thought untouchable.
This one must have crossed your mind at some point! Here we can fill that void with some hard numbers and show how the total pot of around €2.3 million in prize money is divided up:
So the GC winner pockets half a million euros, plus daily jersey bonuses and any other prizes won along the way.
This all seems pretty tasty for the winners, but remember - it's customary that the prize money is split between the team, and so riders don't actually pocket this amount. Cycling is a team sport after all.
The favourite is Tadej Pogačar. He arrives in Barcelona as reigning world champion, chasing a record-equalling fifth Tour, and his spring left little to argue with — four wins from five Classics. The rider most likely to stop him is Jonas Vingegaard, who won the Giro in May and now goes for the Giro–Tour double, last achieved by Pogačar in 2024.
The route leans their way. One short time trial, eight mountain stages, and a finale of three summit finishes in three days — that rewards the climbers, not the men against the clock. Remco Evenepoel has the best time trial in the race but only 26 kilometres to use it, so he needs the gaps kept tight into the final week. Vingegaard rides without Wout van Aert, ruled out on health grounds — a real dent in Visma's firepower. And on home roads, every French voice will be behind 19-year-old Paul Seixas, the first home yellow-jersey hope since 1985.
If the coffee croissant chat goes too deep into Tour de France territory - don't worry, we've got your back! Nod along knowingly and drop one of these 'hot-topic' bombs to blow the conversation wide open. Everyone will chip in and assume you know what you're talking about:
This year's talking points:
The 2026 Tour runs from Saturday 4 July to Sunday 26 July — 23 days, 21 stages and two rest days. It opens with a team time trial in Barcelona and finishes on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
In Barcelona, Spain — the third Spanish Grand Départ, after San Sebastián in 1992 and Bilbao in 2023. The first three stages are on Catalan roads; the race crosses into France on stage 3.
Every stage is live on TNT Sports, streamed on HBO Max. Free highlights run nightly on Channel 5 at 7pm — the first year without ITV, whose run with the Tour ended in 2025.
Tadej Pogačar, chasing a record-equalling fifth title. His closest rival is Jonas Vingegaard, who arrives off a Giro win and is attempting the Giro–Tour double. Remco Evenepoel is the strongest against the clock.
Two firsts headline it: a team time trial opener — the first since 1971 — and back-to-back summit finishes at Alpe d'Huez on stages 19 and 20, never done before in a Grand Tour. Five summit finishes in all, and 54,450m of climbing.
Two: Monday 13 July after stage 9, and Monday 20 July after stage 15.
Everything we write and review we do through passion for the sport & love of the process. We are not sponsored and we aren't briefed. We write about the things that helped us, and we hope that they help you too!
