In 2025, the Tour de France will achieve the rare feat of remaining within the confines of its home country. However, that has not detracted in the least from a Tour de France route that promises exceptional beauty, drama and cycling history.
While Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) may stand out as the clear favourite, we expect the savage pacours to present every chance of an upset from a generational climbing talent such as Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike).
Below we have selected the key stages to watch at this year's race, and as usual, we'll be following along with Live reporting, on-the-ground news and in-depth daily reports.
Hautacam - Stage 12
Thursday 17th July
There might be plenty of climbing to be done in the first week, with many challenging stages that could affect the GC, but the first real sort out of the yellow jersey favourites is likely to occur in the Pyrenees on the Hautacam at the end of stage 12. This is the first mountaintop finish of the race, at 13.5km much longer than anything taken on up to this point in the race, yet still very steep, too, averaging 7.8%, including an especially brutal 2km of 10.8% halfway up.
It was at the end of this steep stretch that Tadej Pogačar lost the wheel of Jonas Vingegaard and his flying super-domestique Wout van Aert towards the end of the final mountain stage of the 2018 Tour de France, the final decisive blow in Vingegaard’s overall victory over the Slovenian. And in 2014, Vincenzo Nibali won the last of his four stages atop the climb, to also seal the yellow jersey. Coming much earlier in the race than then, this year’s ascent won’t be as conclusive, but will reveal who the top favourite is to win the yellow jersey.
Peyragudes - Stage 13
Friday 18th July
By their nature, mountain time trials are always among the most definitive in a Grand Tour. Known as the ‘Race of Truth’, there’s nowhere to hide in a time trial, no option of preserving energy and not attacking, and no domestiques to help pace you. And in terms of the race for the yellow jersey, a time trial up a mountain is even more exposing, as it tests not just a rider as an individual, but their climbing skill, too.
For the first mountain time trial at the Tour de France for 21 years, the organisers have the Peyragudes, an 8km climb averaging 7.9% which has a history of putting the yellow jersey into jeopardy. In 2012 race leader Bradley Wiggins could barely hold the wheel of his Sky accelerating teammate Chris Froome, a perceived sleight from his teammate that almost prompted an upset Wiggins to abandon the race altogether; and five years later it was Froome who was forced onto the backfoot on the vicious final kilometre of 13%, losing 20 seconds and the yellow jersey to Fabio Aru.
Mont Ventoux - Stage 16
Tuesday 22nd July
Standing imposingly almost 2,000m in the sky, the highest point for miles around, the ‘Giant of Provence’ is one of the most famous, and feared, in all of cycling history. From the baron peak of light grey limestone that gives it its ‘Bald Mountain’ nickname, to the thin air and strong winds from the Mistral, everything about it feels desolate, as if people shouldn’t really inhabit it, let alone ride bikes up it.
Dating back to the 1950s, all manner of famous Tour de France stories have played out here, from the great Eddy Merckx requiring oxygen at the summit in 1970, to Lance Armstrong angering Marco Pantani by ‘gifting’ him the stage win in 2000, to Chris Froome being forced to run up it after a mechanical in 2016. Coming this year at the start of the final week, it’ll mark the beginning of this Tour’s endgame.
Col de la Loze - Stage 18
Thursday 24th July
A enervating day in the Alps featuring 5,450m elevation gain is this year’s Queen Stage, and ends with what most consider to be the hardest mountain of this year’s Tour de France — the Col de la Loze. Standing way up in the sky at 2,304m above sea level, it is the Souvenir Heni Desgrange as the highest point of this year’s Tour, where riders will have to gasp just to take in the thin air. And to get there, they must climb continuously for an agonising 26.4km, up fluctuating gradients that average 6.5% but often ramp up to double digits.
Though only included in the Tour for the first time in 2020, it’s already built a fearsome reputation. In 2020, Miguel Ángel López came out on top on a day where all the GC group was obliterated, then in 2023 the climb famously Tadej Pogačar in a way that no other climb ever had or ever has since, leaving him to utter the now notorious words: “I’m gone I’m dead.” This time it’s climbed via the marginally ‘easier’ eastern side, but it’s still horribly difficult.
La Plagne - Stage 19
Friday 25th July
The last climb of the last day in the high Alps will be La Plagne, and it’s here where the dreams of those in contention for a high GC finish will be won or lost. It’s an unforgiving effort, climbing at an average of 7.2% and barely deviating from that for the entirety of the 19.1km ascent to the summit. There aren’t the same double-digit ramps of other mountains at this Tour, but on such a long, unrelenting climb, a rider could crack at any moment.
Not featured at the Tour since 2002, it was once a favourite of Laurent Fignon, who won on it twice during the 1980s, first in 1984 en route to the second yellow jersey of his career, then in 1987 at the end of a Tour that saw him bounce back to his best. This year one of the greats of this generation has a chance to write their name in the history books.
