Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, will host the most northerly Tour de France start in 2027, while the Pyrenees will provide the competitive finale of next year's route, which was announced in Paris on Thursday.
A year after the race's most southerly start in Barcelona, Edinburgh will surpass the 2022 Grand Depart in Copenhagen in the opposite direction, as for the fifth time in six years, the TDF sets off from abroad.
The race will get underway July 2 and run through July 25. Rest days will take place on July 5 and July 19.
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The Edinburgh start had been known for more than a year, and the first three stages in Britain - in Scotland, England and then Wales - were revealed in January.
But organizer ASO published the full route Thursday, with two individual time trials and a closing stage around Paris taking on the already iconic Montmartre climb for the third year running.
That is sure to whet the appetite after the last two years produced thrilling finishes, with Belgian Wout van Aert taking the victory in 2025 and Mathieu van der Poel, with a bit of help from overall winner Tadej Pogacar, holding off a charging peloton by inches back in July.
But long before the peloton arrives there for the finale of the 114th edition of the Tour - and even before it reaches the high mountains - there will be plenty of opportunities for cycling's renowned "puncheurs" to take center stage in the first part of the race.
"Wales is Liege-Bastogne-Liege," Tour director Christian Prudhomme told AFP about the third stage in 2027, in reference to the famous hilly spring one-day classic. "The first 10 days are designed to keep the jerseys changing hands -- the best puncheurs in the world against the overall favorites."
The best in both of those categories is Pogacar, but the course design aims to avoid a repeat of the 2026 edition, when the Slovenian great - who will be bidding for a record sixth yellow jersey victory - held the lead almost from beginning to end.
Prudhomme said he wanted "to muddy the waters, to have a route that allows for anything to happen."
Riders will face a windy arrival in France on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, with a fourth stage largely ridden along the coast.
Even before the first mountain challenge in Stage 9, finishing on the Grand Colombier in the Jura range, the sprinters will struggle to find too many days that favor them.
First Time Trial At Tour de France 2027 Will Be 'Terribly Steep'
The first time trial will come in Stage 7, and at 38 kilometers and pancake-flat, it should leave Olympic and world champion in the discipline Remco Evenepoel salivating.
He finished second to Pogacar in July, but the early part of the 2027 edition should give him a great chance to steal a march on the Slovenian before the mountains begin.
A second time trial of 33 kilometers around Toulouse in Stage 16 should again favor the Belgian.
There will be no shortage of mountains, though, with 28 climbs and a total elevation gain of 53,450 meters, but just three summit finishes among six mountainous stages.
The highest point will be the Col du Portet in the Pyrenees during Stage 18, topping off at 2,215 meters above sea level.
But there will be no Alpe d'Huez, Ventoux, Galibier or Izoard in 2027, though the Tour will take on the Tourmalet and pass through Domancy, where the world championships will be held the following month.
"If you want to discover other climbs, you have to accept that we don't systematically use the best-known ones," Prudhomme said. "It's the first time we will link the Tourmalet and the Portet - two monsters - and the next day, there will also be terribly steep ascents with the return of the Basque climbs Burdincurutcheta and Bagargui for the first time since 2023."
Curiously, though, the 20th and penultimate stage is designed for the sprinters, meaning that the Tour should be sewn up two days before the Montmartre excitement in Paris.
The route for the Tour de France Femmes 2027, which will run July 30 through Aug. 7, also was announced Thursday.
Read more: Tour de France Femmes 2027 Set To Finish On Volcano
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