From Montjuic in Barcelona to Montmartre in Paris, the 2026 Tour de France presents champion Tadej Pogacar and his rivals with a plethora of mountain passes and peaks, including two stages tackling the revered Alpe d'Huez.

The 21-day race will start from Barcelona on July 4 and cover 3,333 kilometers before finishing beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on July 26 after three climbs of the cobbled Rue Lepic in Montmartre, organizers revealed at Thursday's unveiling.

It is an itinerary that offers Pogacar's chief rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel more hope than the 2025 route did.

"It's designed to maintain the suspense until the end," race director Christian Prudhomme said on Thursday.

The route ignores the northern part of France altogether, in complete contrast to the 2025 edition.

"If you put those two races together, you'll see we've managed to get most of France in," said Prudhomme.

Tour de France 2026 Starts In Barcelona And Ends In Paris

The Barcelona Grand Départ will be under intense scrutiny after pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted several stages of the Vuelta a España earlier this year.

"It's hard to know what the situation will be in nine months, we'll have to see," Prudhomme said of the start venue, which had been negotiated long before protesters began targeting cycling races over the participation of the Israel-Premier Tech team.

The route takes the peloton into France via the Pyrenees and up as far as Bordeaux, before setting off on a diagonal route toward the Alps and a hefty overnight transfer to Paris for the final day.

The peloton races through several regions celebrated for their wine, with Bordeaux, Bergerac, and Beaujolais along the way — not to mention Evian, with its world-famous mineral water.

Time Trials And Double Alpe d'Huez Headline Mountain Challenge

There are seven flat stages, four hilly runs, and eight mountainous routes, with five of those featuring mountain-top finishes.

For the solo specialists such as Olympic and world time-trial champion Evenepoel, there are two races against the clock. The opening stage features a 19-kilometer team effort in Barcelona that could propel the Belgian into his first yellow jersey.

There is also a tough 26-kilometer individual run as the Tour enters the Alps on Stage 16, with a formidable climb halfway through.

"This should suit Evenepoel's strengths," said route designer Thierry Gouvenou. "You could see him quite easily taking two minutes there."

Last season, Vingegaard performed poorly on both time trials, where Pogacar earned most of his final winning margin. But the wealth of mountain racing stands out on the 2026 edition — and this, on paper, favors Visma’s Vingegaard.

The riders will tackle all five of France's mountain ranges: the Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Jura, the Vosges, and then an extraordinarily challenging final week in the Alps.

Stage 19 and 20 tackle the legendary Alpe d'Huez mountain, where British rider Tom Pidcock announced himself to the world. His death-defying descent of the Col du Galibier followed by a triumphant ascent around the 21 hairpin curves of Alpe d'Huez made him a fan favorite.

Montmartre Finale Returns As Women’s Tour de France Expands

The route features 30 major climbs — the same total as the 2023 edition, when Jonas Vingegaard rode to his second Tour de France title.

Introduced in 2025 as part of the Olympic Games legacy, the final stage will again feature three ascents of Rue Lepic in Montmartre, where last year crowds partied all day in the bistros before being treated to a memorable duel as Wout van Aert dropped the game champion-in-waiting Pogacar.

"We wanted to nail this down again and hope to make it a regular feature," Prudhomme said of the wildly successful final-day spectacle watched by almost nine million viewers on French television.

The increasingly popular Women’s Tour de France will start in Lausanne, Switzerland, a week after the men’s edition finishes. Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Swiss rider Marlen Reusser are expected to feature strongly in a nine-day race that includes Mont Ventoux.

"It’s a nasty route we’ve put together and a mistake on any day can make the difference," race director Marion Rousse said. The women’s race ends in Nice with a run along the iconic Promenade des Anglais.