Mark Cavendish has told the press that the men’s route is “perhaps the most difficult course” in the race’s history – some cycling journalists think it may even be “too hard” – and sections of the women’s route have been described as “punishing” and “gruelling”; the routes for the 2024 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes are all that road cycling competitors, pundits, and fans everywhere are talking about.
2024 Tour de France
The 2024 men’s Tour, which will be the famous race’s 111th edition, will take place between 29 June and 21 July. For the first time ever, the race will begin in Italy, with the “Grand Départ” commencing in the city of Florence. The riders will enter French territory during the 4th Stage, the first mountain stage of this edition, and the first individual time trial will come at Stage 7, in between the communes of Nuits-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin.
Stage 9, which will take place in Troyes and serve as the final stage before Le Tour’s first rest day, will then provide the riders with a somewhat novel challenge in the context of previous Tours: gravel roads. Greater tests will be still to come, however: Stage 11, which starts in Évaux-les-Bains and concludes in Le Lioran, is a 211 km-long mountain stage, and Stages 14 and 15 will, as the first consecutive mountain stages of the 2024 Tour, push the riders further still. Stages 17 through 20 are then full of ascents and descents aplenty, with numerous steep climbs and winding roads. The highest ascent of the race will come during Stage 19, when the riders ascend the Cime de la Bonette, having already tackled 2 peaks of over 2,000 m during that same stage.
The final stage – this race’s 21st – will, for the first time, not end in Paris. The French capital will be hosting the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics less than a week later, and so Le Tour will crown its 111th winner in Nice, on the French Riviera. The peloton is likely to be stretched and strained ahead of this final ride, following the exhausting climbs of the latter half of Le Tour, but Stage 21’s individual time trial could provide one final piece of drama.
2024 Tour de France Femmes
The 2024 Tour de France Femmes – the 3rd edition of this women’s race – will get underway after the Olympics, on 12 August; it will start in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and finish on 18 August with a tough ascent to Alpe d’Huez, 8 stages later.
After beginning on famously flat Dutch roads, the riders will make their way to Belgium by Stage 4 and will then finish Stage 5 in France. Le Tour Femmes will therefore become increasingly favourable to mountain specialists as it progresses, with the final 2 stages in particular providing plenty for those who excel uphill.
Hospitality packages are expected to go on sale for both Tours in the coming months. For more information on the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes, including ticket information, click the links below. You can also add these races to your Koobit interests, to be notified when packages become available.