The route of the Tour de France 2026 will be officially announced tomorrow (but you can already find most of it in the publication on rumours about the 2026 Tour de France route), and in just under 260 days' time, this 113th edition will really get underway in Barcelona, Spain, the city chosen for this 27th Grand Départ of the Tour de France abroad (the first was in 1954, in Amsterdam in The Netherlands).

In this publication, you'll find detailed maps of the stages that make up this Grand Départ, as well as photos of some of the related locations of these stages in Barcelona.

Early availability of the routes on the velowire app!

As usual now, and as will always be the case in the future, these routes were available first on the velowire app! (you've been able to find them in the app since October 9 already!) The app is still in test mode for the time being, but it's already available for any Android or iOS smartphone or tablet in a fully functional version.

• on Android - nothing could be simpler: download the application directly from the Play Store
• on iOS (iPhone/iPad) - follow these two steps to get the application.

The program for the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2026

The Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2026 in Barcelona / Catalonia 🇪🇸 consists of two full stages and the start of stage 3, before heading to France. Before that, the Tour de France followers meet in Barcelona :

• Wednesday, July 1, 2026: opening of the welcome desk and press center at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona
• Thursday, July 2, 2026: presentation of the Tour de France 2026 teams, with a route between the old hospital with its red bricks and colored roofs Sant Pau Recinte Modernista and the Sagrada Familia, a church eternally under construction
• Saturday, July 4, 2026: Stage 1 - Barcelona > Barcelona 19.7 km (team time trial)
• sunday, july 5, 2026: stage 2 Tarragona > Barcelona 178 km
• Monday, July 6, 2026: 3rd stage Granollers > ?

The route of the 3 stages of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2026 on OpenStreetMap maps and stage profiles

1/ Saturday, July 4, 2026 - Barcelona 🇪🇸 > Barcelona 🇪🇸 - team time trial - 19.7 km

The Tour de France 2026 begins, for the first time, with a team time trial (at the Tour de France 2019 the Grand Départ in Brussels did feature a team time trial, but that was on the second stage!), in the streets of Barcelona.

This will be the 50th team time trial in the history of the Tour de France (in some years there have even been several stages in the form of team time trials), the first having taken place in 1935 and the last in 2019, in Brussels, but never before, the Grand Départ had begun in this form (in 1971 there was a prologue in the form of a team time-trial, but its classification only counted towards the team classification, the riders of the first 3 teams classified in the same time as the first rider of their team only being credited with 20, 10 and 5 bonus points).
The stage starts at the Fórum and first follows the coastline to the Port Olímpic before doing much the same in the opposite direction in the parallel street, after which it really enters the city of Barcelona to repeat the route in the same direction as initially a few blocks further on, and thus pass in front of the Sagrada Família. The teams then head for Plaça d'Espanya, where the climb up the famous Côte de Montjuïc (1.1 km at 5.1%) begins. 2 kilometers after this, they then begin the final climb of this stage, towards the finish at the top of Barcelona's Côte du Stade Olympique (800 m at 7%). A rather unusual course for a team time-trial with these difficulties, which would potentially make some teams wait to find out their time if we were on a logic of time taken on the 5th rider. On this stage of the Tour de France 2026, however, the logic will be quite different, since team times for the stage classification will be taken from the first rider to cross the line... whereas for the general classification, it will be the individual times of each rider that count. So they'll have to choose between the strength of a collective with teamwork and the interests of the leaders for the general classification.

Below you'll find the profile and OpenStreetMap map of the route of the first stage of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2026. Click on images to enlarge.

2/ Sunday, July 5, 2026 - Tarragona 🇪🇸 > Barcelona 🇪🇸 - 178 km

The second stage of the Tour de France 2026 will start west of Barcelona, in Tarragona(Tarragona), and until about halfway through the stage, the profile will be flat, with the route following the coastline, with only a small detour to el Vendrell. However, as the stage moves inland to Castelldefels/Viladecans, things get tougher: the riders climb the Côte de Begues (6.1 km at 6.5%), then head due east through Molins de Rei, before climbing the Côte de Santa Creu d'Olorda (8.4 km at 4.5%). In the final part of the stage, they follow the same sequence as the previous day's team time-trial (but not exactly the same way, as each of the climbs is accessed from the other side), with the Côte du Château de Montjuïc (1.6 km at 9.3%) and the Côte du Stade Olympique (600 m at 7%) .... except that this time these climbs are part of a final circuit that the riders will complete no less than 3 times, so they will have to climb these two sides three times! As on the previous day, the finish in Barcelona takes place at the top of the last climb. Another demanding stage for this Grand Départ!

Below you will find the profile and OpenStreetMap map of the route of the second stage of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2026. Click on images to enlarge.

3/ Monday July 6, 2026 - Granollers 🇪🇸 > Les Angles 🇫🇷 - unofficial

The official starting point for stage 3 is Granollers, north-east of Barcelona. We also know that the stage covers just over a hundred kilometers in Spain and will finish on the other side of the Pyrenees, in France. To be more precise, the organizers of the Tour de France have not yet announced any details of the arrival of this 3rd stage of the Tour de France 2026, but according to rumours about the route of the Tour de France 2026, the stage will head for the French ski resort of Les Angles.

On the potential route of this stage (nothing is official here!), two difficulties are identified a priori before the summit finish: one relatively early in the stage, at Sant Feliu de Codines and another when we're already well into the second half of this 3rd stage of the Tour de France 2026, at Toses. After the descent, it's then a staircase climb that leads the riders to the finish in Les Angles.

Below you'll find the profile and OpenStreetMap map of the route of the third stage of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2026 (unofficial!). Click on images to enlarge.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Tour de France | Tour de France 2026 | OpenStreetMap/Google Maps/Google Earth

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