The 2026 Tour de France route is literally passing the gites … and just to slow the boys down we are on a sharp, off camber, steep corner. What more could you ask for!
Lannemezan > Pau 07 July 2026 – Stage 8 – 158km – Flat Stage
CHRISTIAN PRUDHOMME : You have to go back to 2015 and then as far as 1992, when the Grand Départ was held in Spain, to find a Tour de France that didn’t feature a bunch sprint until the fifth day of the race. A straight forward route has been mapped out. In the wake of those, the sprinters will get the chance to show what they’re made of in Place de Verdun. The sprinters’ teams will be determined to do all that’s required to control the day’s breakaways.
Pau > Gavarnie-Gedre 09 July 2026 – Stage 6 – 186km – Mountain Stage
CHRISTIAN PRUDHOMME : The most demanding of the Pyrenean stages combines the classic with the new. A showdown between the Tour’s big favourites is quite possible on the climbs of the Col d’Aspin and the Col du Tourmalet, assuming, of course, that they decide to join battle with more than 40 kilometres of the stage remaining. If they hold back, though, the day’s spoils will be contested by the best climbers in the breakaway in the sumptuous setting of the Cirque de Gavarnie, which they’ll reach after a long but rolling climb – 18.7 kilometres at an average gradient of 4%.