TOUR DE FRANCE 2025 || THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE EACH STAGE
🗓️ Dates & Stage Breakdown
Stage Date Route Distance Type
1 Jul 5 Lille → Lille Métropole ~185 km Flat
2 Jul 6 Lauwin‑Planque → Boulogne‑sur‑Mer ~209 km Hilly
3 Jul 7 Valenciennes → Dunkerque ~178 km Flat
4 Jul 8 Amiens → Rouen ~174 km Hilly
5 Jul 9 Caen → Caen (ITT) 33 km Individual TT
6 Jul 10 Bayeux → Vire Normandie ~201 km Hilly
7 Jul 11 Saint‑Malo → Mur‑de‑Bretagne (Guerlédan) ~197 km Hilly
8 Jul 12 Saint‑Méen‑le‑Grand → Laval ~171 km Flat
9 Jul 13 Chinon → Châteauroux ~174 km Flat
10 Jul 14 Ennezat → Mont-Dore (Puy de Sancy) ~165 km Mountain
11 Jul 16 Toulouse → Toulouse ~157 km Flat
12 Jul 17 Auch → Hautacam ~181 km Mountain
13 Jul 18 Loudenvielle → Peyragudes (MTT) ~11 km Mountain TT
14 Jul 19 Pau → Luchon‑Superbagnères ~183 km Mountain
15 Jul 20 Muret → Carcassonne ~169 km Hilly
(Rest)145 Jul 21 Montpellier — Rest Day
16 Jul 22 Montpellier → Mont Ventoux ~172 km Mountain
17 Jul 23 Bollène → Valence ~160 km Flat
18 Jul 24 Vif → Courchevel (Col de la Loze) ~172 km Mountain
19 Jul 25 Albertville → La Plagne ~130 km Mountain
20 Jul 26 Nantua → Pontarlier ~185 km Hilly
21 Jul 27 Mantes‑la‑Ville → Paris (Champs‑Élysées + Montmartre) ~132 km Flat/Finale
Total distance: ≈ 3 338.8 km
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Right. The tour to France. It’s a bit like trying to drive a reliant robin up a ski slope while being chased by angry wasps. Utterly pointless, monumentally difficult, and yet absolutely brilliant to watch. Every year, 170 something senui fellows across the entire length and breadth of France. It’s a festival of suffering, a carnival of chaos. And this year, the 2025 edition promises to be a particularly spicy vindaloo of pain. They call it a sport, but it’s more than that. You have tactics that would make a chess grandmaster’s head explode and moments of sheer unadulterated speed that are frankly terrifying. The raw power on display here and a stubborn refusal to give up. It’s magnificent. And what a route they’ve cooked up for this year’s festival of agony. It’s a masterpiece of sadism. So settle in. Preferably something strong and prepare for the greatest show on two wheels. This is the tour to France and it’s about to get underway. But I have a feeling it’s going to be biblical. And so it begins. Stage one, Leil to Leil. On paper, this looks about as threatening as a kitten. 185 kilometers of pan flat, northern France. A simple day for the sprinters and for the big yellow jersey contenders to try not to fall off. But it’s never simple. It’s a cauldron of nervous energy. The pelaton is a single monstrous organism, but inside it a thousand tiny battles are being fought. The goal for the big names is simple. Survive. The problem is the speed. A breakaway will inevitably go up the road. But the pelaton controlled by the sprinters teams will have them on a leash. This stage is all about the final few kilometers. The teams will deliver their star sprinter to the 200 meter mark. It’s a beautiful violent ballet of speed and aggression. The constant looming threat of a sudden painful meeting with the tarmac. As we get closer to Leil, the tension ratchets up. The breakaway has been caught, swallowed by the beast, and now the real war begins. The leadout trains are forming at the front of the pelaton. The speed is now astronomical. The final kilometer is a blur. Then the launch. With a few hundred meters to go, the sprinters explode. It’s a beautiful, desperate sight. And then it’s over. One man throws his hands in the air in triumph, claiming the first yellow jersey. For the others, there’s the bitter taste of defeat. Day one survived, but the chaos has only just begun. The real opera of pain is coming. Stage two is like a drag strip with speed bumps set on a windy coast for 212 kilome. This is a properly nasty, awkward, and brilliant stage from Lwan Plan to Bulongare. The word you’re looking for is a lumpy, a sawtooth profile designed to sap energy one irritating climb at a time. This is where a different type of rider comes to the four. The poncher riders like Matio Vanderpole or Va Van Art. This stage has their name written all over it. The real sting in the tail comes at the end. The wind coming in off the English Channel could become a major factor. It’s a minefield. The final 20 km are brutal. A series of short, vicious climbs. Each one is a launchpad for attacks. This is where the punchers will light the fireworks. It’s a test of raw power and the ability to suffer repeatedly. The sprinters will have been dropped long ago. The GC favorites will have to be right there. They can’t win the tour here, but they can certainly lose it. The descent into the finish is just as treacherous. It’s fast, technical, and demands immense skill and bravery. It’s a stage that rewards aggression and punishes weakness. The finish itself is likely to be a chaotic scrap between a handful of survivors. Someone will emerge from the carnage to take a heroic victory. This is the beauty of the tour to France. The stage three Valon Siennes to Dunkirk looks simple on paper, but this part of France has a secret weapon, the wind. A relentless wind that whips in off the North Sea. It can grab a bicycle and fling it into a ditch. The key word is echelons. When the wind hits the pelaton from the side, they form diagonal lines. The pelon shatters, each group fighting the elements. You can’t win the tour on a day like this, but you can most certainly lose it. It’s a race against the air itself. As the race barrels towards the coast, the tension ratchets up. You can almost smell the salt in the air, and with it comes the certainty that the wind will only get stronger. The teams with serious ambitions for the yellow jersey will be in a state of high alert, ordering their riders to the front. This is a day for the hard men, the big powerful rulers who can grind out a massive gear into a headwind for hours on end. These are the engines of the pelaton, the human windbreaks, who shelter their precious leaders from the storm. Think of the history of this place, Dunkkirk. And while a bike race is hardly the same thing, you can’t help but feel a certain resonance. The Pelaton will look like a retreating army fighting for every inch of ground while the forces of nature try to swallow them whole. And at the end of it all, there’s still the small matter of a sprint. The winner won’t just be the fastest man, but the toughest. A victory in Dunkerk is one of the hardest earned prizes in all of sport. After the sheer psychological terror of the crosswinds, you might think stage 4 would be a bit of a breather, a gentle jaunt through the French countryside from Amyas to Ruan. A chance for the riders to admire the cathedrals and perhaps ponder the fate of Joan of Ark. But you’d be wrong. The tour to France does not do gentle jaunts. This stage is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a banana skin cunningly disguised as a pleasant day out at 173 km. It’s not monstrously long, but the profile looks like a saw blade designed by a madman. It’s just lumpy. There are no categorized mountains that will trouble the men with polka dot ambitions, no towering alpine passes. Instead, it’s a relentless series of short, sharp, leg sapping climbs and tricky winding descents. It’s the sort of terrain that never allows you to find a rhythm. Just as you get comfortable spinning a gear, the road kicks up again, forcing you out of the saddle. Just as you crest a rise, you’re thrown into a technical downhill with off-c campber corners. It’s a day that wears you down bit by bit, grinding away at your resolve and your energy reserves. This is a classic day for a breakaway. While the big teams might want an easy day to recover, there will be a whole host of opportunistic riders who have looked at this stage profile and licked their lips. The sort of pluckucky Havo heroes who aren’t afraid of a bit of suffering. They will attack from the very start, trying to build up a lead that the weary pelon behind might not have the will or the horsepower to chase down. It’s a gamble, a massive daylong effort with a slim chance of success. But for the glory of a tour stage win, it’s a risk worth taking. The main GC contenders, meanwhile, have to be careful. This is exactly the kind of stage where a silly mistake can cost you dearly. A moment of inattention on a descent, a poorly timed mechanical problem, or getting caught behind a crash on a narrow road could see you suddenly isolated and losing time. Their teams will be working to keep them safe, to shepherd them through the chaos, but it’s a nervous, twitchy kind of day. The rolling roads mean the Pelaton is constantly stretching and contracting, and danger lurks around every single bend. It’s deceptively dangerous. As the race approaches the historic city of Ruong, the nature of the challenge changes. The constant up and down of the countryside gives way to a technical and complicated finale. The race organizers haven’t just planned a simple run to a finish line on a wide boulevard. Oh no, that would be far too simple. Instead, they’ve routed the race through a labyrinth of city streets complete with roundabouts, street furniture, and tight corners. It’s designed to cause maximum confusion and reward riders with supreme bike handling skills. It’s urban warfare on carbon fiber. The final few kilometers will be utterly frantic. If the breakaway has been caught, which is a big if, the sprinters teams will be fighting tooth and nail for control at the front. But this isn’t a straight drag race. Positioning is everything. You need to be in the first five wheels through the final corner if you have any hope of victory. This leads to a dangerous high-speed game of chess with letout trains battling for supremacy, barging each other out of the way like commuters on the tube. It is organized chaos, and it is spectacular to watch. But what if a lone attacker or a small group has survived from the day’s breakaway? Then the finish becomes a hearttoppping chase. You’ll have the lone hero digging for every last ounce of energy. His face a contorted mess of pain glancing over his shoulder at the baying pack of sprinters closing in behind him. The pelaton in full flight is a terrifying sight. A multicolored freight train bearing down on him. Will he hang on or will he be cruy swallowed up just meters from the line? It’s the purest drama in sport. This is a stage for the punchers. The explosive riders who can deliver a massive short burst of power. Think of a classicist like Julian Alfilipe or a powerhouse like Matio Vanderpole. The final short climbs before the finish are the perfect launch pads for a late attack. They can use these ramps to blast away from the Pelaton, hoping to gain a few precious seconds of a gap that they can hold through the technical runin. It’s a day that’s almost impossible to predict, and that’s why it’s so brilliant. It’s a proper bike race. And now for something completely different. Stage five. There is no Pelaton, no drafting, no hiding. This is the race of truth. Just one man, his bicycle, and a clock that is utterly merciless. An individual time trial. For 33 km, the riders will be set off one by one from the start ramp in Kong, and they will race around a course that brings them right back to well, Kong. It’s a savage, lonely affair. There are no teammates to help you, no rivals to spur you on. It is the purest, most honest test of a rider’s strength and aerodynamic efficiency. For the specialists, the men who are built like Formula 1 cars and spend half their lives in a wind tunnel, this is their playground. Riders like Filipogana or Remco Venipole, they live for this. They have bikes that cost more than a decent family car, skin suits that are scientifically engineered to be slippery, and helmets that make them look like aliens. They will hold an impossibly high speed, their bodies contorted into a painful aerodynamic tuck, their power output enough to run a small village. It’s a beautiful, brutal display of human performance. The course itself is described as flat and fast, which is another way of saying it’s an absolute power fest. There are no hills to offer a moment’s rest bit. No technical descents to recover on. It is 33 km of pure unadulterated suffering. The riders have to judge their effort perfectly. Go out too hard and you will explode spectacularly in the final kilometers, losing minutes. Go out too conservatively and you’ll never make the time back. It’s a highwire act of physiological control, pacing yourself right on the very edge of your physical limit for the best part of 40 minutes. And for the general classification contenders, this is a day of reckoning. The pure climbers, the skinny little mountain goats who weigh less than my suitcase, they traditionally hate time trials. They simply don’t have the raw horsepower to compete with the big specialists. So for them it’s a day of damage limitation. They have to grit their teeth and hemorrhage as little time as possible to the allrounders like Pogachar or Bingard who are annoyingly brilliant at everything. Significant time gaps will open up today and the first proper hierarchy of the 2025 tour will be established. Watching a time trial is a unique experience. Unlike a normal road stage, the action is spread out over the entire afternoon. Rider after rider rolls down the ramp, each a solitary figure battling their own personal demons. The television coverage will be a flurry of split times, virtual leaderboards, and shots of men in agony. You watch the hot seat where the current fastest rider sits, waiting nervously to see if anyone can possibly beat his time. It’s a slow burning, incredibly tense form of drama where every second gained or lost feels monumental. Uh the technology on display is simply staggering. These are not bicycles as you or I know them. They are aerodynamic sculptures crafted from carbon fiber to cheat the wind. The handlebars are strange contorted things. The wheels are solid discs. Everything is integrated, smooth, and optimized to save every possible watt of energy. Riders will have spent days scouting the course, knowing exactly which gear to be in for every single meter of the road and where the wind is likely to be coming from. It’s as much a scientific and engineering challenge as it is a physical one. This is the first major opportunity for the big GC favorites to land a proper blow on their rivals. A strong performance here can put you in the yellow jersey and put your opponents on the back foot psychologically. If a rider like today Pogba puts a minute and a half into a pure climber, that climber knows he has to make up that time and more in the high mountains. It sets the narrative for the rest of the race. It forces other teams to become aggressive, to take risks while the leader team can ride defensively. The consequences of these 33 km will ripple through the next two weeks. By the end of the day, the general classification will have been completely reshuffled. The sprinters and breakaway artists who might have held the yellow jersey for the first few days will slide down the order, replaced by the serious contenders. We will have our first clear picture of who is truly in form and who is not. There is no hiding place in a time trial. The clock doesn’t lie. It is a stark, brutal, and utterly compelling part of the magnificent tapestry of the tour de France, and it will set the stage for the mountains to come. After the time trial, it’s back to proper bike racing. Stage six, Bayou Ver 201 km. This isn’t a gentle roll through the French countryside. It’s a relentless grind. This stage looks innocuous, but it’s a silent assassin. The Pelaton will be feeling it. The Normandy countryside becomes a verdant torture chamber. This is attrition pure and simple. A day for the hard men. A breakaway will almost certainly go trying to steal a march on the big teams. It’s a delicate balancing act. A high-speed game of chess played out on two wheels. The breakaway artists will be giving it everything they’ve got for their one day in the sun. Up front, it will be pure unadulterated passion and pain. As the race snakes its way towards Vire, the character of the stage begins to change. The accumulated fatigue of the day starts to tell, and those rolling hills now become genuinely painful obstacles. The pace in the Pelaton will inevitably increase as the finish line gets closer. The teams of the explosive climbers will start to move towards the front. They know that the pure sprinters will have been dropped on the earlier climbs and this is their chance to pounce. This is where the tactical noose of the team directors comes into play. The breakaway will see its lead begin to tumble, swallowed up by the chasing pack. The final part of the stage into Vire is particularly tricky. Positioning is everything. You have to be at the front. Fighting for every inch of road, ready to respond to the inevitable attacks. It’s a stage that rewards audacity and punishes hesitation. It will all come down to a frantic explosive finish. It will likely be a small select group of the strongest riders fighting it out on the final ramp to the line. Stage seven, San Malo to Mur de Britannia. It’s all about the Mur de Britannia, the wall of Britany. When the French call something a wall, it’s steep. It has become an iconic finish, a place where legends are made. The entire Pelaton knows what’s coming. A monster waiting at the end of the day. If you get caught behind a crash, your day is over. The climb itself is savage. The first kilometer is brutally steep. This is where the big GC contenders will come to the four. This is the first real test for the men aiming for the yellow jersey. It’s a place for the favorites to send a message. It’s a short, violent, and utterly compelling piece of sporting theater. The riders will tackle the climb twice. The first time is a dress rehearsal. This is magnificent cruelty, giving riders a taste of the pain to come. The first passage will set the stage, creating a select group at the front. The tension will be unbearable as teams fight for position. On the final ascent, all hell will break loose. The GC contenders will make their move. A rider will jump, pouring power into the pedals. The others have a split second to react. The winner will be a deserving champion. The Moore is a barometer for the entire race, shaping the epic battles ahead. After the M de Britany, uh the tour to France offers up stage 8 Saman Lran to Laval 174 km for the sprinters. The big powerful men who have been suffering in silence through the hills now get their chance to shine. For the GC contenders, it’s a day to stay out of trouble. The beauty of a sprint stage is in the simmering tension that builds. A small breakaway will be allowed to go up the road. Behind them, the pelaton is a coiled spring. The job of the sprinters teams is immense. As the finish line in Laval approaches, the pace will begin to ramp up. It’s a brutal physical battle for position. It’s organized chaos, and it is utterly mesmerizing to watch unfold. Welcome to the final 10 km. The breakaway has been caught. The Pelaton is traveling at over 60 kmh. This is the most dangerous part of any bike race. The slightest touch of wheels can cause a massive pileup. The letout trains are now at full tilt. Each rider taking a turn on the front. The final kilometer is pure anarchy. The noise is deafening. It’s now down to the last men to guide their sprinter into the perfect launch position. And then the launch. The sprinters explode, unleashing phenomenal power. In those final seconds, nothing else matters except getting their front wheel across that white line first. The winner collapses. A mixture of elation and complete exhaustion. A theater of high-speed highstakes drama. Right. Stage 9, Shenon to Chatu. And if you’re thinking, hang on, this sounds familiar, you’d be right. It’s another one of those days designed by a committee of people who probably think beige is an exciting color. 170 km of what the French romantically call rolling countryside, which is a ponyy way of saying flat. This isn’t a challenge for the riders. It’s a long drawn out two- wheeled commute. The only thing separating this from a Sunday jaunt to the pub is that these chaps are doing it at speeds that would get your family saloon impounded. And instead of a pint at the end, they get a face full of lactic acid and a scrum of sweaty journalists. The problem with stages like this is the predictability. It’s like watching a Bond film. You know, with absolute certainty that there will be a car chase, a gadget, and a villain with a stupid accent. Here, you know, there will be a doomed breakaway of hopefuls. The Pelaton will cruise along like a giant multicolored slug for hours. And then in the final 10 km, all hell will break loose. The general classification contenders, those skinny bloss with the thousand-y stairs, will be desperately trying not to fall off while the sprinters, the cycling equivalent of nightclub bouncers, elbow their way to the front for the grand finale. It’s a formula, and sometimes formulas can be a bit tedious. The finish in Chaturu is all about a great, wide, magnificent boulevard. This changes things. A wide finish means there’s room for maneuver, room for error, and room for several different sprint trains. This is a drag race, pure and simple. Think of leadout men like launch control systems on a hypercar. The wide finish invites a fullon showdown, all vying for the same patch of tarmac. The final five will be a cage fight on wheels. The wide boulevard of Shatu isn’t just a finishing straight. It’s a coliseum. This is what we came to see, a mass sprint showdown. And now for something completely different. For nine days, we’ve been pling about on roads so flat you could play billiards on them. The sprinters have had their fun. The breakaway hopefuls have had their TV time. And the GC contenders have been hiding in the bunch like nervous squirrels. Well, today the hiding stops. Today the tour to France remembers it’s a race up mountains not just between towns. We are heading into the massive central and for the first time the road is going to point aggressively unapologetically skywards. This is where the race for the yellow jersey truly begins. The stage from Enzat to Leondor isn’t the longest at 163 km but it’s packed with menace. It’s like a small angry dog. It might not look like much, but you just know it’s going to bite you. The climbs in the massive central are notoriously difficult. They’re not like the long, steady alpine passes. These are irregular, punchy, and steep. They kick up without warning, the gradient changing constantly, which makes it impossible for the riders to find a rhythm. It’s a grueling, leg sapping, soulcrushing experience, and I, for one, cannot wait to watch. This is the day the pelaton splits into two distinct groups. The climbers and everyone else. The big powerful sprinters who have dominated the first week will suddenly find that gravity is not their friend. Their massive thigh muscles so useful for those final 200 m dashes become useless lumps of meat to be hauled uphill. They will form what is known as the groupto, a rolling social club at the back of the race whose only ambition is to finish inside the time limit. Meanwhile, at the front, the whippetss, the mountain goats, the men who look like they’d have trouble opening a jam jar will come alive. This is the great sorting off of the tour. All the bluffing and hiding of the first week is over. You can’t fake it on a mountain. Your legs either have the power or they don’t. Your lungs either have the capacity or they don’t. You will see the first proper attack from the big name will look at finger. Finger will look at even and at some point one of them will launch an attack. So vision the importance of this first mountain stage cannot be overstated. It’s not just about winning the day. It’s about sending a message. A rider who shows weakness here will be targeted relentlessly in the days to come. It’s like a pride of lions sensing a wounded wilderbeast. The other contenders will smell blood in the water and attack without mercy. A bad day in the massive central can’t lose you the tour, but it can put you in a position where winning becomes almost impossible. The pressure on the team leaders is immense and the pressure on their domestics is even greater. Their job is to set a pace. so ferociously hard that it deters attacks from rivals and sheds all the lesser riders from the back of the group. They are the sacrificial lambs riding themselves into the ground for their leader until they have nothing left to give, at which point they peel off their faces a mask of pure agony. One by one, they will fall away until only the kings of the sport are left to do battle on the final climb. It’s a brutal yet beautiful display of teamwork and sacrifice. The cycling equivalent of a Formula 1 pit crew, only much, much slower and more painful. Expect big moves. This isn’t a day for timid, speculative digs off the front. This is a day for a fullthroated committed assault. A team like UAE or Vizma Lisa Bike might try to blow the race apart from 50 km out, setting a blistering tempo on the penultimate climb to isolate the other leaders. It’s a high-risk strategy. Go too early and you could blow up spectacularly, but get it right and you could gain minutes on your rivals, completely changing the complexion of the race. It’s a tactical chess match played out on a 15% gradient. By the time the leaders reach the finish at Leondor, the general classification will look completely different. The sprinters who wore the yellow jersey in the first week will be a distant memory. New names will be at the top and significant time gaps will have opened up. We will have our first real indication of who is truly on form and who is just pretending. The race will have a new narrative, a new hierarchy. The Flatland skirmishes are over. The war in the mountains has begun and it is going to be absolutely spectacular. After the utter brutality and high drama of the first mountain stage, the tour organizers have decided to give everyone a bit of a breather. Stage 11 is a 154 kilometer jaunt around Tuloo, the pink city. And it is, you’ve guessed it, flat. It’s like following up a Metallica concert with a bit of light jazz. After the glorious chaos of the massive central, we are back to the predictable procession of a sprinter stage. It feels like a bit of an anti-limax. A pause button pressed just as things were getting interesting. A day for the fast men to have one last harrah before we head into the real high mountains. You might think this is a bit silly, and you’d be right. Why put a flat stage here sandwiched between the massive central and the impending horror of the Pyrenees? Well, it serves a purpose. It allows the battered bodies of the GC contenders a day of relative recovery, a chance to spin the legs without the stress of having to attack or defend on a mountain pass. For them, today is about survival. Stay in the bunch. Stay out of trouble. Don’t get caught behind a crash. And save every ounce of energy for the monumental tests that lie ahead. It’s an active rest day, if you will. But for the sprinters and their teams, this is anything but a rest day. This is their cup final. This is their last chance for glory, for what will feel like an eternity. Once the race hits the Pyrenees, these powerful heavy set riders will be reduced to simply surviving. Their only goal being to make the time cut each day. So today in to lose is massively important. The green jersey competition could be decided here. The bragging rights for the fastest man in the race are on the line. They will not be taking it easy. This is their last meal before the famine begins. And so we will have a strange two-tiered race. The stage is a circuit around to lose, great for spectators. The finish will be anything but boring. Knowing this is the last flat day before the mountains will add a sense of desperation to the finale. This will translate into a frantic final 20 km. The risk of crashes will be high. A high-speed ballet where one wrong move means disaster. Without the leadout man, the sprinter is nothing. It may be the sprinter’s last dance, but they will make it memorable. A final explosive punctuation mark before the narrative shifts to the giants of the Pyrenees. And as the winner throws his hands in the air, he’ll know he’s earned it. The sprinters have had their fun. Now we get to the proper stuff. We are in the Pyrenees doing a full cannonball into the deep end with stage 12 from ouch to the fearsome slopes of how. This is about endurance, about grit, about finding that tiny ember of willpower just to keep the pedals turning. The mountains loom on the horizon. The pelaton will stay together for a while. As the road tilts upwards, the pretenders will begin to fall away. This is where the general classification battle ignites. He is the executioner. This is proper sport. After preliminary climbs, they hit the final climb, how to camp. The name itself is enough to send a shiver down the spine. It’s a 13.6 km long torture chamber. It’s a staircase to hell. And the riders are expected to cycle up it. This is where the real race happens. The team leaders are now exposed alone, naked in a world of pain. This is where you see the faces. The crowds on how to come will be biblical. For the riders, it must be a blur through which they must push their exhausted bodies. And then one rider will go. He will open a gap and the stage is one. This isn’t just a stage victory. It’s a statement. How to come doesn’t just create time gaps. It shatters morale. Utterly brilliantly savage. Stage 13, a time trial. But this is not a normal time trial. This is an 11 kilometer individual time trial to the ski station at Prag Goods. It is entirely uphill. It’s a mountain time trial. Your aerodynamically sculpted time trial bike utterly useless. It’s all about power to weight ratio. There is no pelaton to hide in, no teammate to pace you. It’s just you, your bike, and a gradient that wants to break your spirit. Get on your super light climbing bike, not your TT machine. a lonely possession of pain. It’s a tightroppe walk of agony. This stage is a nightmare for the bigger riders. It’s a day designed for the whippetss. This stage won’t win the tour on its own, but it could very easily lose it for someone. The climb itself is a monster with changing gradients. And then there’s the final sting. The finish line is on the altiport. The writers have to tackle a final ramp that hits a gradient of 16%. Imagine the scene. It is the final brutal insult. It’s where a handful of seconds can be won or lost. It is cycling at its most primal. The yellow jersey and his closest rivals will be the last to start. The tension will be immense. A writer’s tour France ambitions could completely evaporate. The general classification will have been given a violent shakeup. It’s designed to be decisive. After the mountain time trial, you might think the race organizers would give the riders a break, but you would be wrong. Stage 14 is a classic old school Pyreneian beast. 183 km from POW to the summit. Finish at Super Banire. Before the finish, the riders have to haul themselves over the cold doisk, the cold detour malay, and the cold deer sword. They are legends of the sport. The day will start fast with a breakaway. Behind them, the GC teams will be marshalling their forces. It’s a delicate, high stakes game played out over some of the most beautiful and terrifying terrain in Europe. Then comes the Tormale, the highest point in the Pyrenees. By the time they reach its summit, the Pelaton will be shattered. This is survival of the fittest in Lyra. After the brutal descent of the turmal and the leg sapping grind of the parasaur comes the final climb to super baner. It’s 18 km long and it comes at the end of a day that has already pushed the riders to their absolute physical and mental limits. This is where the race will be won and lost. The breakaway, if it has survived, will likely be caught on these lower slopes. Their dreams turning to dust just a few kilometers from glory. It’s a cruel sport and now the main event begins. The kings are ready to do battle. The pace will be ferocious from the bottom of the climb. The strongest teams, the ones who have managed to keep one or two support riders with their leader, will unleash hell. They will set a tempo so punishing that rider after rider will crack. their legs screaming no more, their bodies unable to respond. The group of favorites will shrink from 10 riders to eight to five until only the true contenders for the yellow jersey remain. They will stare at each other, watching for the slightest sign of weakness, a grimace, a slight wobble, anything to suggest that now is the time to attack. And then the attack will come. It will be explosive, a sudden violent acceleration that shatters the fragile truce. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for all day. This is pure theater. The rider who attacks has to be completely confident in his own ability because if he fails, if he is caught and passed, the psychological damage is immense. But if he succeeds, if he rides away from his rivals and crosses the line alone, arms aloft, it is one of the greatest feelings in all of sport. It is dominance. It is victory for those left behind. It is a desperate, frantic chase. They will be fighting to limit their losses to save their tour. Every second lost here feels like a minute. The finish line at Super Bananeras will look like a field hospital. Riders will cross the line and collapse over their handlebars, completely empty, having given every last ounce of energy they possess. The general classification will look very different tonight. Some hopes will be soaring, others will be crushed. This is what a proper mountain stage in the tortoance is all about. It is quite simply epic. After the Pyrenees, a seemingly gentle stage from Murray to Carcasson, the GC contenders will want a low simmer, saving legs for the Alps. But transitional stages are traps. Desperadoos will see this as their chance. They will attack from the flag drop. The profile is lumpy, sapping power from the legs. It’s a classic breakaway profile. A small group can build a lead. Pelaton won’t chase. The stage is set for renegades. On a day like today, they can be kings. It’s the most important day of the entire tour. Carcasson is a gigantic medieval fortress, a fairy tale castle. The final kilometers are tricky and not at all suited to sprinters. This plays into the hands of the breakaway artists. For the men out front, this is the moment of truth. It becomes a savage tactical battle. It’s a glorious backstabbing festival of self-interest. And then one man will make his move. He will ride alone towards that magnificent fortress and gets his moment of glory in the shadow of history. Today we face a monster, Mon vontu, the giant of Provence. It’s not just a climb, it’s a pilgrimage. There is no other climb in cycling quite like it. The Vontu is personal. It becomes barren, desolate, a lunar wasteland. The wind is the Vontu’s most famous weapon. There is nowhere to hide and you are at the mercy of the elements. It’s not a fair fight. This is the day that can define a career or end it. We remember Tom Simpson who tragically died on these slopes. The ventu doesn’t just create time gaps, it creates history. As the race hits the slopes, the tension is unbearable. The GC team swarm to the front. Leaders tucked in the slipstream conserving energy. They are staring into the abyss. The first attacks will come from the lesser climbers. The real race begins when the big teams decide playtime is over. Riders will start being ejected out the back around the chalet renar. The real fireworks will start. Then one of them will launch an allout legs shattering attack. The final 6 km are a vision of hell. This is where the tour to France will be won or lost. The man who reaches that weather station first will have conquered the giant. He will have written his name into legend after the apocalyptic drama of Mont Vontu. You might expect the organizers to give the riders a day off. Perhaps a gentle ride to a nice hotel for a spa treatment and a glass of something cold. But no, this is the tour to France and it is a cruel, heartless beast. Instead, the riders are presented with this, a 161 km slog from Bolen to Valance. On paper, it looks like the most straightforward thing. As flat as a pancake, as simple as a hammer. It has bunch sprint written all over it in giant neon letters. But paper, as we all know, can be deeply misleading. The pelaton is not a machine. It is a collection of very, very tired human beings. Their legs will be screaming, hollowed out by the effort of climbing the giant of Provence. Their minds will be frazzled. their reserves of willpower utterly depleted. A day like today coming after a day like yesterday is a recipe for chaos. The sprinters will want their teams to control things, to chase down the breakaway and deliver them perfectly to the final 200 m. It’s what they’re paid a fortune to do. However, the domestics, the workh horses who have to do all the chasing, will be on their knees. They’ve just spent a day dragging their team leaders up a mountain. And now they’re being asked to ride on the front into a headwind for 4 hours. Their enthusiasm for this task will be, shall we say, limited. This creates an opportunity. A small, brave, breakaway group might just find that the elastic doesn’t snap. The pelaton groaning and creaking like a rusty old Land Rover might just give them enough rope to hang themselves or to pull off a spectacular heist. And then there’s the other factor, the Mistral, the famous wind that funnels down the Ron Valley where this stage takes place. It’s a vicious, unpredictable crosswind that can rip a Pelaton to shreds in a matter of seconds. If the wind blows, and it almost certainly will, this simple flat stage turns into a full-blown tactical nightmare. Teams will have to ride in echelons, fighting for position at the front. One moment of inattention, one lapse in concentration, and a GC favorite could find themselves on the wrong side of a split, watching their tour to France advantage blow away on the breeze. This stage looks like a gift for the fast men, but it is anything but a certainty. The sprinters teams have a monumental task, deciding if they even want to chase the breakaway. The final kilometers will be utter pandemonium. It’s a recipe for disaster. The risk of a crash is astronomically high. This is where the real skill of a sprinter comes to the four. Nerve bike handling skills and the tactical brain to navigate the chaos. What looks like a simple day could provide a spectacular finish. Or it could all end in a pile of tangled bikes and broken carbon fiber. The tour to France simply rolls on, relentless and unforgiving. Enough of the flat. We’re back in France with all the lumpy bits. Stage 18. Viv to the cold de la. And when I say up, I mean it. This isn’t just a mountain. It’s a statement. The air gets thin. The gradient’s ridiculous. This is where the tour is won or lost. This thing is a modern monstrosity. A tarmac scar. The final kilometers are absurd. Over 20%. That’s not a road. It’s a wall. There is absolutely nowhere to hide. See the sheer panic in their eyes. This climb strips away all pretense. It is in short brilliant television. Cycling hell reserved for the truly ambitious. Your entire tour to France can be utterly obliterated. It’s the ultimate test. As you go higher, the air pressure drops, meaning there are fewer oxygen molecules. For a professional cyclist, it means their engine is being starved of fuel. Their power output drops, their heart rate skyrockets, and their brain screams at them to stop. It’s a battle of physiology as much as it is a battle of cycling. The big powerful riders will suddenly find their massive muscles are just useless. The advantage shifts to the skeletal looking chaps with an astonishing powertoweight ratio. They will dance on the pedals seemingly immune to the gradient and the altitude while the others grind to a virtual standstill. It is a magnificent Darwinian spectacle. The final 5 km are the killer. It breaks the legs. It breaks the spirit and it creates the enormous time gaps. So, who will conquer it? It’s a gladiatorial contest set on one of the most savage battlegrounds in all of sport. This is about guts. After the barbarity of the de laos, you might expect a break, but no. Stage 19 is only 130 km. It’s short, sharp, and designed for chaos. There is barely a meter of flat road all day. The racing will be full gas from the moment the flag drops. Teams will see this as their last chance to attack the race leader. It completely changes the dynamic of the race. The action could explode on the very first ascent. It’s a highstakes game of chess played at 40 km an hour up a mountain. This is the third week of the tour and the riders are running on fumes. We are going to see some spectacular implosions today. It’s a recipe for high drama and unpredictable racing. After a relentless day, the battered pelaton arrives at the foot of the final challenge, the monstrous climb to Llan. Over 21 km long, it’s a true test of endurance and mental strength. This is where the final decisive moves for the general classification will be made. There is nowhere left to hide. The yellow jersey will be under immense pressure as they reach the top. The general classification of the tour de France will likely be set in stone. This is the final exam. It will in all likelihood crown the winner of the entire race. Stage 20, the penultimate day. This isn’t a scenic potter through the Jura Mountains before Paris. It’s 185 km of treachery designed by a sadist. The climbs are numerous, sharp, and relentless. A meticulously planned race can be undone by one moment. This isn’t a day for the faint of heart. This stage is a series of legs sapping ascents. For the man in yellow, it’s a day of terror watching everyone. It’s a psychological minefield dressed as a bicycle race. This stage is the last chance saloon for a heroic attack. This is where you see the true character of a champion. The route from Nantua to Pontarier is deliberately cruel. It drains the last dregs of power. One wrong move and your tour to France is over. It is a highstakes ambush. This stage is a playground for the punchers and classic specialists. Riders who thrive on chaos. Think of riders like Julian Alfilipe or Matio Vanderpole. This is their kind of terrain. The final 50 km are a masterpiece of malevolent course design. This is where legends are made and contenders are broken. And what of the yellow jersey? His job today is simple. He must become a shadow. Ultimately, this stage is the tour def France in microcosm. The writers will cross the line in Pontarier utterly exhausted. One man will be breathing a colossal sigh of relief knowing that barring a complete disaster in Paris, the tour de France is his. What a spectacle. And so we arrive at the final day, stage 21, from Monte Lavil into the heart of Paris. This is it, the grand finale. For the first 100 km or so, this isn’t really a race. It’s a parade. a rolling lycra clad celebration of survival. Uh the man in the yellow jersey will be seen sipping from a flute of champagne. You’ll see teams lining up, arms around each other for one last team photo on the move. Think about what these men have been through over 3,000 km of racing. And now they get their reward. The ride into Paris is a lap of honor for every single one of them. They’ll lead the Pelaton riding at the front as a single triumphant unit. It’s a beautiful piece of theater, a moving tribute to the teamwork. But don’t get too comfortable because this gentle truce is about to come to a very, very abrupt end. As the Pelaton hits the plus de la Concord, everything changes. The smiles are replaced with grim determination. The pace ramps up. The race is on. The final laps around the arct triumph are some of the fastest racing of the year. This is the sprinters world championship. Winning on the chamomile is career definfining. The leadout trains jostle for position with terrifying aggression. Teams fight to get their man in perfect position for the final blast. It’s a sensory overload as they hit the final straight. It is absolute chaos and then the sprinters launch. A test of pure speed and courage and then it’s over. His victory finally officially sealed. It simply doesn’t get any better than this. The tour to France is over. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that the full route of the 2025 tour to France. From the nervous sprints in Leo through the mountains to the chaotic conclusion on the Shamsiz, it is the greatest, hardest, and most beautiful sporting event on the planet. a 3-week soap opera played out on the stunning canvas of France, full of heroes, villains, triumph, and despair. So, the big question is, who wins it? Now, it’s over to you. Get down into the comment section and drop your predictions. Thank you for watching. Click the like button, press the subscribe button, and ring that little notification bell. See you then.