Tour de France 2025 route rumours and announcements

[Izzyeviel]

One of my favorite parts to these Tour reveal days is watching fans that think there should be insane mountain stages complain while those of us who love time trialing are supposed to be happy with anything over 30 k of total time trialing. It’s like, come on, I am sorry you only get 6 or 7 mountain top finishes and you’re upset that there aren’t tougher mountain combos on stages meanwhile the 60 k individual time trial is a thing of the distant past.

Make me dictator of the tour & you'll not only get 199km TTT but also, a 199km Time trial & a MTT where they do Ventoux twice.

 

[Pantani_lives]

If you compare the Tour now to ten or twenty years ago, it favors the climbers much more than it used to. In a classic Tour there were three flattish time trials and three or four MTFs. In this Tour there are eight MTFs if you include the MTT.

That means the Tour will probably be decided on the MTFs. The muritos and the flat time trial will provide some GC action in the first week, but the biggest gaps will come on those tough finishes in the high mountains. Without bad luck the best climber will win.

Top 10 of the toughest climbs:

1. Ventoux (stage 16, MTF)
2. Madeleine (stage 18)
3. Loze (stage 18, MTF)
4. Tourmalet (stage 14)
5. La Plagne (stage 19, MTF)
6. Hautacam (stage 12, MTF)
7. Superbagnères (stage 14, MTF)
8. Peyragudes (stage 13, MTT)
9. Peyresourde (stage 14)
10. Aspin (stage 14)

 

[gregrowlerson]

Make me dictator of the tour & you'll not only get 199km TTT but also, a 199km Time trial & a MTT where they do Ventoux twice.

And Pogacar will defeat Evenepoel proving categorically that he is the better time trialler...

 

[AmRacer]

If I was director of the Tour, I'd would do a 1 stage Lachlan Morton style Tour.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

If you compare the Tour now to ten or twenty years ago, it favors the climbers much more than it used to. In a classic Tour there were three flattish time trials and three or four MTFs. In this Tour there are eight MTFs if you include the MTT.

That means the Tour will probably be decided on the MTFs. The muritos and the flat time trial will provide some GC action in the first week, but the biggest gaps will come on those tough finishes in the high mountains. Without bad luck the best climber will win.

Top 10 of the toughest climbs:

1. Ventoux (stage 16, MTF)
2. Madeleine (stage 18)
3. Loze (stage 18, MTF)
4. Tourmalet (stage 14)
5. La Plagne (stage 19, MTF)
6. Hautacam (stage 12, MTF)
7. Superbagnères (stage 14, MTF)
8. Peyragudes (stage 13, MTT)
9. Peyresourde (stage 14)
10. Aspin (stage 14)

I definitely agree. I think there should be two long ITT's each year. In the end, however, with regards to who wins, it doesn't really matter. More often than not, at least in recent times, the best climber is also the best time trialist.

 

[Gigs_98]

Every single year there is this little part in the back of my mind hoping, that maybe this will be the year when the ASO changes its policy and releases all the profiles right after the route reveal.

 

[Peyroteo94]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/tour-de-france-route-live-tv-guide-startlist-stage-by-stage&ved=2ahUKEwiPp4Sz07WJAxW-TaQEHasPDsU4ChDF9AEoAHoECAgQAg&usg=AOvVaw3eOoZRv0Trpc_SPJRECevw

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Every single year there is this little part in the back of my mind hoping, that maybe this will be the year when the ASO changes its policy and releases all the profiles right after the route reveal.

They still have to figure out if there's any road between those places. They will send an expedition to find out they way they did before 1910 Tour: then the man they sent got lost near Tourmalet and survived a terrible night in the wild Pyrenees.

 

[RedheadDane]

Every single year there is this little part in the back of my mind hoping, that maybe this will be the year when the ASO changes its policy and releases all the profiles right after the route reveal.

The real importance is that they're released early enough for @Devil's Elbow to make his analyses.

 

[Rob5091]

So the organizers will be hoping for a little French success with Madouas in his home region and Gaudu or Little Lenny M in the lumpy stuff. I suppose a week of MvdP/Van Aert/Green Jersey contenders is better then 3 weeks of non-stop Pogi.
What's the deal though with stage 20? Seems like a last minute change or something odd going on there.

 

[Netserk]

Top 10 of the toughest climbs:

1. Ventoux (stage 16, MTF)
2. Madeleine (stage 18)
3. Loze (stage 18, MTF)
4. Tourmalet (stage 14)
5. La Plagne (stage 19, MTF)
6. Hautacam (stage 12, MTF)
7. Superbagnères (stage 14, MTF)
8. Peyragudes (stage 13, MTT)
9. Peyresourde (stage 14)
10. Aspin (stage 14)

 

[Luthor]

All the stage profiles
https://www.velofute.com/post/parcours-et-profil-des-étapes-du-tour-de-france-2025
Finally less flat stages, it was so boring this year.

 

[fbjim]

I see Prudhomme has said that he expects it to be close until the last two Alp stages. There you go, designed for no GC action until late on.
https://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme-sur...ance-2025-on-a-traque-la-moindre-cote/1517012

english version at https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...es-for-a-far-more-open-tour-de-france-in-2025

Of course he is going to say that. What do you think he's going to say - the tour will be decided when Pogacar takes three minutes on Hautacam before winning the MTT, so, might as well not watch the last week?

 

[fbjim]

Sure.

But when you only broadcast the last 45 minutes, it's more forgivable to pack all the action into the last 45 minutes. When you're broadcasting, with magazine segments and post-stage presentations and interviews, 4-5 hours of every stage, it seems counterproductive to then produce a route that ensures 3-4 hours of that will see nothing of value or interest happen. When you broadcast every minute of every stage, the concern that you need to backload the stage lest the broadcast miss something of importance, like Contador on Hoz, goes out the window.

The empirical evidence is that this is not in fact what is happening.

In fact if anything the trend since COVID is remarks from the peloton that stages are being ridden hard from a significant distance out. This reached a point last year where people were actually complaining that breaks weren't being given enough time on mountain stages, despite breaks taking mountain stages usually being a sign of passive racing.

You can say it has nothing to do with stage design but frankly the constant complaining in these threads confuses me when the actual racing since 2021 has suggested that whatever their stage design philosophy has been since then, it's been either producing good racing, or at least not hampering it excessively.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Warmed up a bit to it now.
Overall thoughts:
- I don't give a damn about weekend stages being boring, I actually prefer it that way although I also have the privilege to work in a relaxed desk job where I can easily watch the Tour during the week. I honestly have better things to do on a nice warm July weekend in Europe than sit indoors all afternoon watching TV.
- I don't care that stage 20 is a nothingburger, what difference does it make if the Tour is decided on stage 17,18, 19 or 20? Besides, since 2020 stage 20 was always a letdown where nothing major changed anyway.

As for the route:
- First week is way better than I expected. Honestly, in recent years the puncheur stages often were more fun overall than the pure mountain stages so I don't need some token unipuerto MTF in the first week and I'm happy what stage 2,4,5,6,7 and 10 seem to offer.
- Flat ITT on stage 5 with over 30km is fantastic, sadly the MTT later on is terrible but I guess I have to be satisfied with one good ITT.
- Only one massif central stage is a letdown, also one with a lack of proper steep gradients. It's still a good stage overall, mind but I still feel we're missing out.
- Now for the big mountain stages: Mainly terrible.
- Hautacam and Mont Ventoux are a joke, I know there's no great way to integrate Ventoux but it's still a sad waste of these climbs to have them as basically unipuertos where UAE/Visma are gonna chooochooo 90% of the climb.
- Stage 14,18 and 19 obviously have a lot of overall elevation gain and a good potential to deliver but it's still such an uninspiring setting. Not a single one of them starts with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate so there's just a very small chance an actual interesting break will get ahead and it also limits the role satellite riders can play. The way we've seen the hard stages raced the last year UAE or Visma will set such a hard pace from the beginning of the first climb that everyone ahead will simply be caught before the penultimate climb.
- Positive is that I think the route will be very scenic. Also happy that Madeleine is finally included in a potentially relevant position again.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Just used some of my lunch break to fast-forward/skim through yesterday's presentation (I thought it was on Friday, but must've interchanged my mind with a football thing, oops ).

The just revealed 2025 tour route is truly and honestly a route design very much to my taste.

Not only the chronology of the tension conservation to last week spectacles.

But also and even more so all the stages in Brittany and then the Jura stage, the penultimate stage from which I "expect the unexpected"-

I can only applaud this route design and in no way understand the dissatisfaction with it.

I can read between the lines that some here prefer predictable results with their favourites, as often as possible, preferably every day.

I'm sitting in the distant opposite corner.

I want a race where as many riders as possible get the opportunity to show off, and not least some mixed stages where several rider types can assert themselves.

Such a route design exudes and oozes the 2025 version far more than the version this year, I think.

And I like that.

9/10 from here.
Without blouse.

 

[Gratemans]

Warmed up a bit to it now.
Overall thoughts:
- I don't give a damn about weekend stages being boring, I actually prefer it that way although I also have the privilege to work in a relaxed desk job where I can easily watch the Tour during the week. I honestly have better things to do on a nice warm July weekend in Europe than sit indoors all afternoon watching TV.
- I don't care that stage 20 is a nothingburger, what difference does it make if the Tour is decided on stage 17,18, 19 or 20? Besides, since 2020 stage 20 was always a letdown where nothing major changed anyway.

As for the route:
- First week is way better than I expected. Honestly, in recent years the puncheur stages often were more fun overall than the pure mountain stages so I don't need some token unipuerto MTF in the first week and I'm happy what stage 2,4,5,6,7 and 10 seem to offer.
- Flat ITT on stage 5 with over 30km is fantastic, sadly the MTT later on is terrible but I guess I have to be satisfied with one good ITT.
- Only one massif central stage is a letdown, also one with a lack of proper steep gradients. It's still a good stage overall, mind but I still feel we're missing out.
- Now for the big mountain stages: Mainly terrible.
- Hautacam and Mont Ventoux are a joke, I know there's no great way to integrate Ventoux but it's still a sad waste of these climbs to have them as basically unipuertos where UAE/Visma are gonna chooochooo 90% of the climb.
- Stage 14,18 and 19 obviously have a lot of overall elevation gain and a good potential to deliver but it's still such an uninspiring setting. Not a single one of them starts with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate so there's just a very small chance an actual interesting break will get ahead and it also limits the role satellite riders can play. The way we've seen the hard stages raced the last year UAE or Visma will set such a hard pace from the beginning of the first climb that everyone ahead will simply be caught before the penultimate climb.
- Positive is that I think the route will be very scenic. Also happy that Madeleine is finally included in a potentially relevant position again.

Agreed completely. There's a lot of interesting stages but Hautacam and Ventoux are just.. ugh. Why not do a cinglé stage of the Ventoux?
Or at least climb it two times: first climb from Malaucène, descent to Sault, ride through the Gorges de la Nesque (absolutely gorgeous landscape btw) then climb it from Bédoin.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

- Stage 14,18 and 19 obviously have a lot of overall elevation gain and a good potential to deliver but it's still such an uninspiring setting. Not a single one of them starts with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate so there's just a very small chance an actual interesting break will get ahead and it also limits the role satellite riders can play. The way we've seen the hard stages raced the last year UAE or Visma will set such a hard pace from the beginning of the first climb that everyone ahead will simply be caught before the penultimate climb.

Stage 19 definitively falls in the category "start with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate" in my eyes, even if the first 7 km are "flat" before the 11 km categorized climb. This stage should definitively see a strong break, like on stage 20 this year where Carapaz and Mas was kind of close to staying away.

Stage 18 should also see a strong break of good climbers. The first 10-15 km are flat, but then there is a section of like 15 km with 400 meters of climbing and what looks to be some steeper ramps. It should be enough to give the climbers a chance to move. It's also only 40 kilometers to Glandon starts, so the real break might not get away before that and then it should definitively be possible to see strong break riders or strong satelite riders move.

Stage 14 starts with 70 km of flat, so there I agree with you, but still when one of the most likely satelite rider is Wout van Aert I think we might see strong satelite riders in the break also here.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Stage 19 definitively falls in the category "start with a climb or rolling terrain right out of the gate" in my eyes, even if the first 7 km are "flat" before the 11 km categorized climb. This stage should definitively see a strong break, like on stage 20 this year where Carapaz and Mas was kind of close to staying away.

Stage 18 should also see a strong break of good climbers. The first 10-15 km are flat, but then there is a section of like 15 km with 400 meters of climbing and what looks to be some steeper ramps. It should be enough to give the climbers a chance to move. It's also only 40 kilometers to Glandon starts, so the real break might not get away before that and then it should definitively be possible to see strong break riders or strong satelite riders move.

Stage 14 starts with 70 km of flat, so there I agree with you, but still when one of the most likely satelite rider is Wout van Aert I think we might see strong satelite riders in the break also here.

The problem on stage 18 and 19 is that these first uphill sections are basically already on the first of 3 major climbs. What we have seen this year is that UAE and especially Visma will want to put as much fatigue as possible in the riders legs before the last climb so they nuke the climbs and then sit up on the flat sections because you can't put fatigue into drafting riders on the flat. This is where the break/satellite riders normally get some breathing room.
With basically no flat in between the climbs everyone ahead, satellite or break, is basically doomed because they'll be just mowed down on the climbs with domestiques pumping out +6w/kg on every climb.
What you want ideally is one climb or a few smaller ones right at the start and then some longer valley stretches to get an interesting dynamic.

 

[ashhutch1997]

I have no issue with the Ventoux being a one climb stage, other than 2021, pretty much all Ventoux stages historically have been unipuerto.
I don't mind one big MTF, as long as there are other stages that aren't solely about the final climb, that's the problem with this route, it's just a MTF fest, with no incentive to attack from far.
Regarding the first week, other than the disappointment of there being no cobbles, it's actually much better than first feared. Really like the amount of punchy stages and I think that's the best you can get with that part of France.
Also, I'm bored with Loze, I think it's being way overused, if Courchavel is paying, finish there as it gives more opportunity to attack on Madeline, like 1997 for example.

 

[ManicJack]

Visma will want to put as much fatigue as possible in the riders legs before the last climb so they nuke the climbs and then sit up on the flat sections because you can't put fatigue into drafting riders on the flat.

That's nonsense

 

[rghysens]

...I suppose a week of MvdP/Van Aert/Green Jersey contenders is better then 3 weeks of non-stop Pogi...

You think Pogi won´t play a (big) role in stages 2, 4, 6 and 7?

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

That's nonsense

It's not, in the scenario I was talking about it is very hard to put a worthy amount of fatigue into a bigger drafting group.
Obviously if you would have 30 teammates who can roll above threshold turns and you nuke along with +60 km/h then yes, even drafting on the flat will be tiring. But we're talking about a scenario where you have 3-6 teammates left and still climbs ahead where you want to put the hammer down. Burning through these teammates on the flat will serve no bigger purpose.

 

[YavorD]

All the stage profiles
https://www.velofute.com/post/parcours-et-profil-des-étapes-du-tour-de-france-2025
Finally less flat stages, it was so boring this year.

Don't think there are less flat stages. This year there are 7 next year there will be 7 as well.

 

[zlev11]

The empirical evidence is that this is not in fact what is happening.

In fact if anything the trend since COVID is remarks from the peloton that stages are being ridden hard from a significant distance out. This reached a point last year where people were actually complaining that breaks weren't being given enough time on mountain stages, despite breaks taking mountain stages usually being a sign of passive racing.

You can say it has nothing to do with stage design but frankly the constant complaining in these threads confuses me when the actual racing since 2021 has suggested that whatever their stage design philosophy has been since then, it's been either producing good racing, or at least not hampering it excessively.

but that's exactly the point. we are in an era where riders are actually willing to race from far distances when the routes allow it but we ended up with a route where that is basically impossible. it's then very disheartening that the ASO would rather appease the youtube highlights watchers than the fans who are willing to devote 4 hours to watching a stage.

it's no coincidence that the best designed TDF stages of the past 3 years were also the most aggressively raced from far out. 2022 had Galibier-Granon and Spandelles-Hautacam. 2023 had Tourmalet-Cauterets and this year had Le Lioran. those were all great stage designs that everyone loved (except maybe Cauterets) when they were released and then they delivered on the road. there's no stage like those this year but there easily could've been if they were just a bit more creative.