The 2026 men's Tour de France will, for a second year, include a final stage up Paris’ Montmartre hill, and that will follow two gruelling Alpe d’Huez summit finishes, organisers said on Thursday, promising a route to keep up the suspense to the very end.

After starting in Barcelona on 4 July, the 113th edition of cycling’s biggest race will, on 26 July, culminate in a spectacular climb through Montmartre's cobbled Rue Lepic - a feature first introduced in 2025 and won by Belgium’s Wout van Aert after a fierce duel with four-time champion Tadej Pogacar.

“Laurent Nunez, who is now Minister of the Interior, has authorised us to return to Montmartre, and we are obviously very happy about that,” race director Christian Prudhomme told reporters.

“The success last year was phenomenal thanks to the Paris Olympics. Without the Games, the Tour could never have gone through Montmartre. The enthusiasm and atmosphere on Rue Lepic were incredible.”

SERIES OF PUNISHING MOUNTAIN STAGES

Prudhomme said the organisers wanted the race to remain undecided until the very end, with a succession of punishing mountain stages before the finale.

“There is a real desire to make the toughest stages come at the end - three summit finishes in the last four days, two consecutive stages up Alpe d’Huez, and what is probably the hardest mountain stage in the Tour’s history on the eve of the final day,” he said. “Whatever the yellow jersey’s lead 48 hours before Paris, nobody will be able to say it’s over.”

The peloton will climb Alpe d’Huez twice in succession — first via its famous 21 hairpins on Stage 19, then again the following day from the Col de Sarenne after a 171 km stage with 5 600 metres of elevation gain.

The race will enter France early through the Pyrenees, with a first mountain test between Pau and Gavarnie-Gedre on Stage 6, featuring the Col du Tourmalet. The route revisits several battlegrounds of the Pogacar–Vingegaard rivalry, including Le Lioran and Le Markstein.

A single individual time trial of 26 km between Evian-les-Bains and Thonon-les-Bains is scheduled for Stage 16.

“We want a Tour that builds up in intensity,” Prudhomme said.

The Tour de France Femmes, to be held from 1-9 August for the fifth time since its 2022 revival, will feature the legendary Mont Ventoux for the first time. The “Giant of Provence” will be climbed on Stage 7 before the race concludes with a 99 km circuit around Nice.

“This is the toughest women’s Tour so far, with almost 19 000 metres of climbing,” race director Marion Rousse said. “We’ve made it a little harder because the peloton is stronger. It’s a clever route — every stage has a potential trap.”

The women’s race will also bring back an individual time trial, a 21 km test between Gevrey-Chambertin and Dijon on Stage 4.