Key Takeaways:
The 2025 Tour de France kicks off in Lille, setting the stage for early drama with tight roads, punchy climbs, and potential crosswinds.A decisive stage finish atop the iconic Mont Ventoux for the first time since 2013 promises a dramatic showdown.An 11km individual time trial up to Peyragudes in the Pyrenees introduces a rare and pure climbing test for GC contenders.Back-to-back summit finishes in both the Pyrenees and Alps ensure high-stakes battles in each of these key mountain ranges.The 2025 Tour de France Femmes features its longest edition yet, with challenging stages in Brittany, the Massif Central, and a climactic Alpine finale.
Each year in late October, journalists and riders gather in Paris for the unveiling of the Tour de France (July 5-27, 2025) and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (July 26-August 3, 2025) routes, eager to see if the rumors about key stages have proven true. Despite the season just ending, the event’s growing prestige reflects cycling’s enduring popularity. This Tuesday, the 2025 routes were revealed, and we’ve been analyzing them to find the standout challenges awaiting riders and fans next summer. Here are the key highlights.
Related StoryA Northern Start for the Men’s Tour de France
After spending most of its time south of Paris in 2024, the 2025 edition begins in Lille, one of France’s largest northern cities. And while it looks fairly mundane compared to the opening stages of the 2023 and 2024 Tours, this will be a tricky weekend for the riders thanks to tight roads, punchy climbs, and a chance for crosswinds blowing in from the English Channel to break the race into the echelons. Expect an intense start to the Tour with a sprinter taking Stage 1, a Classics rider taking Stage 2, and at least one pre-race GC contender losing time either due to a crash or a badly-timed mechanical.
Route map of the 2025 Tour de France
No Cobbles
Lille sits within throwing distance from many of the ancient cobbled farm roads that make April’s Paris-Roubaix one of the most punishing (for the riders) and exciting (for the fans) races of the season. But while the organizers have been more inclined to offer cobbled stages in recent Tours de France, they missed out on a golden opportunity to build one into this year’s Tour. Yes, there will be a few cobbled climbs as the race criss-crosses the region, but these are minor challenges compared to the long, rutted sectors of pavé that the race could have visited.
An Early Individual Time Trial to Honor a D-Day Landmark and Shuffle the GC
The former home of William the Conqueror, the town of Caen was a key objective of the D-Day Invasion during World War II. It took Allied forces over two weeks to liberate the city at a cost of over 30,000 Allied soldiers and more than 3,000 of the town’s inhabitants.
The city is celebrating its millennium in 2025–yup, it’s thousand-year anniversary–so the Tour’s organizers have given it the right to host Stage 5, a 33km flat time trial that should be one of the most important GC battlegrounds of the Tour’s first week. The course favors specialists–like Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel–and it could be the perfect chance for the young Belgian–who finished third as Tour rookie in 2024–to take the first yellow jersey of his career.
Back to the Mur de Bretagne—This Time to Honor the Badger
Stage 7 ends with two trips up the Mûr-de-Bretagne, a short, steep climb in Brittany–not far from the home of Bernard Hinault, the French legend who won five Tours de France in the late-1970s and early-1980s (and is famously nicknamed “the Badger” thanks to his tenacious riding style).
Overall, the Tour’s opening week boasts four stages with punchy, uphill finishes, which means fans are in for a treat at the end of stage–and riders will have to gamble a bit in order to win on these tricky finishes.
Bastille Day Fireworks in the Massif Central at the End of an Extra-long First “Week”
The first “week” of the 2025 Tour de France is actually ten days long, one more day than the riders are accustomed to. That’s because Bastille Day falls on a Monday this year, and the organizers always plan something exciting to entertain the legions of fans celebrating the holiday weekend on the ride of the road or at home.
This year’s Bastille Day stage is no different: a challenging ride through the Massif Central, a rugged region known for steep climbs and high temperatures–which is fitting considering the region was formed by a chain of now-extinct volcanoes. In all, Stage 10 boasts seven Category 2 climbs, over 4,400m of elevation gain, and a finish in Le Mont-Dore on the slopes of the Puy de Sancy, a 3.3km climb with an average gradient of 8-percent. If Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard and Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar race this stage like they did last year’s stage through the region, then we’re all in for a big treat. After ten hard stages–including four of the five longest days in the entire 2025 Tour de France–the riders will be eager to treat themselves to the race’s first Rest Day when it’s over.
A Hattrick of Pyrenean Summit Finishes Highlighted By a True Mountain Time Trial
The Tour’s second “week” begins on a Wednesday and lasts just five days. But with a trip through the Pyrenees including three consecutive summit finishes, the shorter week will be a more of a treat for the fans than it will be for the riders.
The highlight is without a doubt Stage 13’s 11km individual time trial from Loudenvielle up to Peyragudes, the purest mountain time trial we’ve seen in years. There will be no long stretches of flat roads on the run-in to the climb; the riders will roll down the start ramp, have about three kilometers to get their legs moving and then they begin the 8km climb with an average gradient of 7.9-percent and a ramp one kilometer from the finish line that hits 16-percent.
The mountain time trial is sandwiched between a 187km stage with a summit finish to Hautacam on Stage 12; and a Pyrenean mountain-fest on Stage 13: a 183km stage with almost 5,000m of elevation gain (including a trip over the Tourmalet) and a summit finish at the Superbagnères ski resort (Stage 14). These three stages could easily decide the Tour.
The Return of Mont Ventoux
Believe it or not, the Tour de France hasn’t finished atop Mont Ventoux, a bald, lunar-like summit that looms high above Provence, since 2013. A stage was supposed to finish at the summit in 2016, but high winds forced the finish to be moved further down the mountain. (That was the day when Great Britain’s Chris Froome–who won the stage in 2013–was forced off his bike and started running–sans said bike–up the road.) The climb returned in 2021, and while the riders summited it twice, the stage ended in a town back down the mountain.
But Mont Ventoux will be back in 2015, and–if things go as planned–the riders will tackle the 15.9km Géant de Provence at the end of Stage 16. Stages that finish atop Ventoux are always a treat for fans, but this one could be tricky for the riders as it comes right after the Tour’s second Rest Day–and mountain stages that come right out of Rest Days can sometimes be case of “too much, too soon” for riders who need more time to regain the rhythm of racing after a day “off.”
The Col de la Loze Headlines Two Hard Days in the Alps
After making the riders tackle Mont Ventoux at the start of the Tour’s third and final week, the organizers are “treating” them to “just” two days in the Alps near the end of it–but they’re two of the hardest stages in the entire 2025 Tour de France.
Stage 18 is probably the toughest, with 5,500m of elevation gain, three summits that top-out above 2,000m, and a finish on the Col de la Loze, the summit that famously cracked Pogačar in 2023. 26.km long and with two steep ramps near its 2,304m summit, it’s easily the highest–and the hardest–climb in the 2025 Tour de France.
And the next day isn’t much easier, with five summits jammed into just 130km of racing and 4,600m of elevation gain by the time the riders hit the finish line atop the 19.1km climb to La Plagne. Of the six summit finishes in the 2025 Tour de France, these two might be the worst.
Related StoryThe Tour de France Femmes Begins with Two Tricky Stages in Brittany
Just as the Tour de France heads back to Paris (after finishing in Nice in 2024), the 2025 Tour de France Femmes will be getting underway in Brittany, along France’s northwestern coast. And like the men’s stages that came through the area a few weeks earlier, these opening stages will be tricky, with tight roads, punchy climbs, and uphill finishes that could create a GC surprise or two.
Route map of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift
The Longest Tour de France Femmes Yet
Taking place over nine days, the 2025 Tour de France Femmes will also be the longest since the race was relaunched in 2022. The organizers had to receive special permission to run the race over nine stages as the Union Cycliste International (the sport’s governing body) limits Women’s WorldTour stage races to just eight days.
Two Stages for the Sprinters
After the opening weekend, sprinters should get their chances on Stages 3 and 4, with flat finishes expected in Angers and Poitiers. Stage 5 looks destined to go to a breakaway, but earlier in the day the race passes through the town that’s home to the headquarters of FDJ-Suez, the team that just signed 2023 Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering to a 2-year contract. After narrowly losing the race thanks–in part–to an unfortunate crash in 2024, expect Vollering and her new team to enter the Tour looking for revenge.
A Midweek Trip Through Massif Central
As the Tour de France Femmes cuts a diagonal path across the country, the peloton will make another trip through the Massif Central on Stage 6, a 124km ride from Clermont-Ferrand to Ambert with 2,350m of elevation gain spread over five categorized summits. The summit of the final climb (the Col du Chansert) comes about 13km from the finish line in Ambert, but with a flat plateau right after the summit–and a few kilometers before the road plunges downhill in the direction of Ambert–it’s the perfect place to launch a stage-winning–or yellow jersey-stealing–attack.
Another Alpine Finale for the Femmes
For the second year, the Tour de France Femmes will be decided in the Alps with Stages 8 and 9 offering the perfect opportunity for a high-mountain showdown. Saturday’s Stage 8 begins in Chambéry–which hosts the finish of Stage 7–and then starts climbing right away. But the highlight has to be the summit finish on Col de la Madeleine, a 18.6km climb with an average gradient of 8.1%. Even more climbing still to come on Stage 9, the race could be over by the top of this climb.
But if it isn’t, Stage 9 will settle things with another 2,880m of elevation gain and three more categorized summits. It’s not as brutal as Stage 8, but after eight days of hard racing–and with a trip over the Col de Joux-Plane midway through the 124km stage–it’s going to do some damage.
No Time Trial
Despite having nine stages, there will be no time trials in the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, and we like it. Let’s face it, time trials can be a bit…um…boring at times, and given the way each road stage in the last two Tours de France Femmes has been raced, we’re all for more of them. And without a time trial to help sort the GC, we might see more risk-taking and few surprise attacks as riders try to capitalize on the race’s several less-predictable days–which will be a major treat for fans watching from home.
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Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.