The 2026 Tour de France now has an official route, Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel shared their analysis in his podcast The Move on what the race, the mountains and the favorites will be like. They especially focused on Tadej Pogacar and his mental challenge to take on the victory in his fifth TDF that would make him equal Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Induráin as the record holder.
The route
Armstrong stresses that the design of the 2026 Tour maintains the excitement until the end: “Although we all know that there is a big favorite, the uncertainty will remain until stages 18, 19 and 20, because they are extremely hard”. The race starts in Barcelona with a 19-kilometer team time trial, with two short climbs, a format that, according to Armstrong, “gives Pogacar an advantage, because he’s going to have someone from his team who can climb those climbs with him, whether it’s Del Toro or another teammate.”
The total route includes 21 stages, eight mountain stages (five summit finishes), seven flat and four undulating, totaling 54,000 meters of elevation gain, up from 48,000 meters in the previous edition. Armstrong says the key stages will be in the Pyrenees, with stage 6 including Aspin and Tourmalet; in the Alps, at the end of the Tour; in the Massif Central, with a hard stage (stage 10); and in the Vosges, where Pogacar already won (stage 14).
On the finish in Paris, he notes, “There will be three times Montmartre, and the last climb is 15 kilometers from the finish. That gives a chance to some of the stronger riders, not so much to the sprinters.”
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