Tour de France 2026 – Meet the Pros

The UCI Tour de France 2026 will have two stages with an Alpe d’Huez finish:

Stage 19, July 24: Gap – Alpe d’Huez and Stage 20, July 25: Le Bourg-d’Oisans – Alpe d’Huez.

Stage 20 will pass through Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and contrary to the previous two times it did – before my Tours of 2021 and 2022 – I will be there too.

So, I will have the opportunity to watch the pros fly by – I’ve experienced that once before, during a Dauphiné stage in my 2014 Tour.

As I do not want to end up having to wait for a long time as I did then, this needs some careful planning.

Stage 19 is on the same day I start my Tour. I do not know yet what my Prologue will be, but even if that would start near Bourg-d’Oisans, I should be long gone before the peloton arrives.

Saturday’s stage 20 is the best day for me to watch. The peloton will descend the Croix de Fer into Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and continue to Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne for the Télégraphe/Galibier.

It depends on the timetable, but I will probably be able to cycle a stage in the area and get (back) to the stage’s route in time.

The apartment is less than 500 meters from where the peloton will pass through the city, so I can either watch first or cycle first.

Or cycle my stage and wait somewhere along the route between the two cities, but that would mean I’d have to cycle back via some other road than the D1006, or wait until the whole caravan has passed.

Then again, I can also break my stage into two parts and use watching the spectacle as a break…

Map with cols and dead ends in the Maurienne Valley:

Background image: Tadej Pogačar (yellow jersey) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step white jersey) waved to the crowd on the Tour de France podium after Stage 16 in Nîmes. Creator: Felix Wong Date: 16 Jul 2024.
License: Attribution 4.0 International