The 112th edition of the Tour de France was officially presented this Tuesday and let out some details for its fans. The 2025 version of the ‘Grand Bouclé’ will start in Lille on July 5 and finish on the Champs-Elysées on July 27.
“There is not a single millimeter outside the borders. Some will say ‘100% French? No wonder, it should always be like that,’” said race director Christian Prudhomme at the announcement of the Tour 2025 route, which will pay tribute to the great Gallic champions along the way.
Along the way, they will pay tribute to Jacques Anquetil with a finish in Rouen, where he lived and where he died; the crossing of Yffiniac, where Bernard Hinault was born; and a stage start in Saint-Méen-le-Grand, where Louison Bobet, the first cyclist to win three Tours, who will celebrate the centenary of his birth next year, was born.
The French race will have fewer flat stages and the mid-mountains will be the main protagonist. It will have a classic and tough route with a time trial to Peyragudes and finishes in mythical passes such as Hautacam, Superbagnères, Mont Ventoux, Col de la Loze and La Plagne.
There will be a total of 3,320 kilometers with six medium-mountain stages, five mountain stages, with passes through the Massif Central, Pyrenees and Alps, two time trials, one of altitude in Peyragudes, and with many camouflaged climbs along the route to avoid the tedium of the flat terrain.
Because of the boredom of several days of the last edition, the organization made work for the pure sprinters. “It’s not that we don’t want the sprinters to win, but we want their teams to work at it, that the stages are not written in advance,” Prudhomme explained.
The arrival at Superbagnères, which the Tour has not climbed since 1989, when Robert Millar (Philippa York) won with Fabio Parra 14th and Luis Alberto Camargo 17th, in an edition that began in Luxembourg, will be the highlight of a day with climbs of the Tourmalet, the Aspin and Peyresourde.
In the last week come three Alpine days with two summit finishes, starting with the already mythical Col de la Lòze, described by Prudhomme as “a summit of the 21st century”, which will be climbed for the third time since its ‘discovery’ in 2020, but this time on the other side, equally demanding, but somewhat shorter, with 26.2 kilometers at 6.5%, after having climbed the Glandon and the Madeleine.
The high mountains will say goodbye on stage 19, two days before the finish on the Champs-Elysées, with a finish in La Plagne and its 19.1 kilometers at an average gradient of 7.2 %, which the race has not visited since the victory of Dutchman Michael Boogerd in 2002 and where Frenchman Laurent Fignon and Swiss Alex Zulle also won.
The 21 stages of the Tour de France 2025
Stage 1 – 05/07 Lille – Lille (185 km)
Stage 2 – 06/07 Lauwin-Planque – Boulogne sur Mer (212 km)
Stage 3 – 07/07 Valenciennes – Dunkerque (178 km)
Stage 4 – 08/07 Amiens – Rouen (173 km)
Stage 5 – 09/07 Caen – Caen (CRI) (33 km)
Stage 6 – 10/07 Bayeux – Vire Normandy (201 km)
Stage 7 – 11/07 Saint-Malo – Wall of Brittany (194 km)
Stage 8 – 07/12 Saint-Méen-le-Grand – Laval (174 km)
Stage 9 – 07/13/07 Chinon – Châteauroux (170 km)
Stage 10 – 07/14 Ennezat – Le Mont Doré (163.1 km)
15/07 Rest day in Toulouse
Stage 11 – 16/07 Toulouse – Toulouse (154 km)
Stage 12 – 17/07 Auch – Hautacam (181 km)
Stage 13 – 18/07 Loudenvielle – Peyragudes (CRI) 11 km
Stage 14 – 07/19/07 Pau – Superbagnères (183 km)
Stage 15 – 07/20/07 Muret – Carcassonne (169 km)
07/21/07 Rest day in Montpellier
Stage 16 – 07/22/07 Montpellier – Mont Ventoux (172 km)
Stage 17 – 07/23/07 Bollène – Valence (161 km / 161 miles)
Stage 18 – 07/24/07 Vif – Col de la Loze (171 km)
Stage 19 – 07/25 Albertville – La Plagne (130 km)
Stage 20 – 07/26/07 Nantua – Pontarlier (185 km)
Stage 21 – 27/07 Mantes-la-Ville – Paris (120 km)
Source: Revista Mundo Ciclístico