Next year’s Tour de France will include a stage to Le Lioran. That’s reported by various media, including La Montagne. In 2024, Jonas Vingegaard won a stage here after a sprint against an exhausted Tadej Pogacar.
According to La Montagne, the stage to Le Lioran will take place on the French national holiday, July 14th. This is on the Tuesday following the first rest day. The 'explosive' stage would start in Aurillac and pass over, among others, the Pas de Peyrol (5.4 km at 8.1%).
In 2024, Tadej Pogacar launched an attack on that climb heading to Le Lioran, but was caught on the subsequent Col du Perthus (4.4 km at 7.9%) by Jonas Vingegaard. After also climbing the Col de Font de Cère (3.3 km at 5.8%), a two-man sprint had to decide the day’s winner. That sprint was won by Vingegaard.
La Montagne also reports that on Sunday, July 12, 2026, two days before the stage to Le Lioran, a stage through the Dordogne is scheduled. This would run from Ussel to Bergerac. The newspaper provides no information yet on any climbs.
Col de Tentes and Planche des Belles Filles?
Other French media are also speculating widely about the Tour route. For example, the race is said to return to Alpe d’Huez, the third stage would finish in ski resort Pla del Mir, and the Tour would also revisit Chalon-sur-Saône, where Dylan Groenewegen won a stage in 2019. Furthermore, Sudouest reports that the sixth stage will start in Pau and finish on the Col de Tentes (29.9 km at 5%). On this climb, which begins in Luz-Saint-Sauveur (known as the starting place of Luz Ardiden and the Col du Tourmalet), the Tour has not finished before.
The expectation is that, after passing through the Massif Central, the Tour will head north towards the Vosges. According to Velowire, stage 14 or 15 would then finish on La Planche des Belles Filles. A report from the local paper L'Est Republican seems to confirm that the Vosges will once again host the Tour. The Ultra Trail du Grand Ballon was scheduled for the third weekend of the Tour but had to change its date ‘due to a possible conflict with ASO regarding the passage or finish of a stage of the 2026 Tour de France’.
Rumors about a mountain time trial
In the third week, the Tour is expected to enter the Alps. We already mentioned the rumor that Alpe d'Huez is included in the route for the first time since 2026, but the local newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré now also reports that the race will feature another mountain time trial. This would finish on Plateau de Solaison. Le Dauphiné Libéré also mentions Orcières-Merlette as a possible stage finish. On this climb, Luis Ocaña took off in the 1971 Tour, Gert-Jan Theunisse won in 1989, and Primož Roglič was the best in 2020.
The official presentation of the new Tour route will take place on October 23 in Paris. So far, it is confirmed that the biggest cycling race on the calendar will kick off with a team time trial in Barcelona (although the city council has set the condition that Israel-Premier Tech in its current form cannot participate). On the second day of La Grande Boucle, there is a tough stage planned for the punchers. Just like in the time trial, the climb of Montjuic and the ascent to the Olympic Stadium (this time multiple times) will be included in the route.
