Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 route: Swiss start, Mont Ventoux ascent, and Nice finish

The 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will include an ascent of Mont Ventoux, an individual time trial, and a punchy finish in Nice.

The route for the fifth edition of the race was unveiled in a presentation inside Paris's Palais des Congrès on Thursday. It will begin in Lausanne, Switzerland, the second time it has begun outside France, with three stages in Switzerland out of a total of nine.

It will begin on Saturday 1 August, a week after the men's Tour de France finishes on the 25 July, and conclude on Sunday 9 August. After a punchy start, there is a 21km-long individual time trial on stage four. Everything will build up to Mont Ventoux on stage seven, however, before a finale in Nice which includes four ascents of the Col d'Èze.

Lausanne offers a relatively straightforward start for riders, before the hills mount later in the day, with two categorised climbs just over halfway to go, offering a chance for both sprinters and climbers to make their mark on day one. The course will loop between two lakes before returning to Lausanne.

Day three, however, is littered with climbs, the first of which erupts just 24km into the race, rising at 6.3% over 11.3km.

It's not until the fourth day of racing that the Tour enters its home country, beginning in Gevrey-Chambertin weaving through vineyards in an individual time trial to Dijon - the first time trial hosted by the Femmes in two years.

On Wednesday 5 August, the race will enter the mountains, taking a course from Mâcon to Belleville-en-Beaujolais over eight categorised climbs. But the true test comes days later, with a summit of the iconic Mount Ventoux at an elevation of 1,909 metres after a day of relatively flat racing.

Over a gradual climb to the Col de Toutes Aures that climbs 4.6% over 6.4 km, the next day, a sharp descent will set up the race for a bunch sprint into Nice, ready for the finale to kick off a day later. This final day of racing features a brutal, four-time summit of the Col d'Eze over 99 kilometres, before a sharp descent towards the coast.

It was here in 2020 that Lizzie Deignan overtook Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) in a sprint finish to victory at La Course, the curtain-raiser for the Tour de France.

In total, the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will climb a total of 18,275m over 1175km of racing during the nine-staged race.

The 2025 Tour de France Femmes was won by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), the first French winner, after a dominant final two stages in the Alps. Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) finished second, with defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) in third.

Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 stage table

Full route map