The routes for the 2024 editions of the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will be officially presented in Paris on Wednesday October 25 by race directors Christian Prudhomme and Marion Rousse.
Cyclingnews will have live coverage of the presentation followed by full details of the race routes, rider reactions and analysis.
The 111th edition of the men's Tour de France will take place from June 29 to July 21. It starts in Florence, Italy and ends in Nice after three weeks of racing to avoid the preparations for the 2024 Paris Olympics Games that begin a week later.
The third edition of the modern incarnation of the women's Tour de France will be held after the Paris Olympic Games between Monday, Aug 12 and Sunday, August 18.
French race organiser ASO always tries to keep details of the race routes under wraps until the official presentation, while local politicians like to boast about the races visiting their regions to local media, which publish leaks about specific stages or regions.
Thomas Vergouwen patiently collates the details and publishes them on his VeloWire website and even creates a map of the expected route.
Below Cyclingnews has all the details on the latest rumours and leaks for both race routes.
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We will update the information between now and the official presentations so that you know what to expect when the official route is revealed.
Tour de France Femmes 2024 route
Demi Vollering wins the 2023 Tour de France (Image credit: Alex BroadwayGetty Images)
What we know about the Tour de France Femmes route
The third edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift has changed dates to accommodate the Olympic Games and will include eight stages held across seven days from August 12-18, 2024.
Organisers of the Tour de France Femmes, ASO, have already confirmed that the Netherlands will host the first three stages of the 2024 edition.
The Grand Départ will kick off on August 12 in Rotterdam, one day after the conclusion of the Paris Olympic Games.
It will be the first Grand Départ of the Tour de France Femmes held on foreign soil.
However, Rotterdam is a historical location in women's racing as the location of one of the rounds of the former Women's World Cup, a top-tier one-day race series that was replaced by the current Women's WorldTour in 2016.
After the opening stage from Rotterdam to The Hague, ASO has confirmed a double day of racing on August 13 with the potential of a stage 2a road race that starts in Dordrecht and a stage 2b time trial in the afternoon in Rotterdam.
There was no time trial in the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes in 2022. ASO introduced a time trial to the second edition in 2023 after feedback from teams and riders. The race against the clock, won by Marlen Reusser (SD Worx), closed out the 2023 event in Pau, while her teammate Demi Vollering won the overall title.
Although the specific details of the courses have not been revealed for the opening three stages, the race has been confirmed to enter Rotterdam, The Hague, and Dordrecht.
"We are proud to organise the first foreign Grand Départ of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift together with The Hague and Dordrecht," said Ahmed Aboutaleb, the Mayor of Rotterdam. "The Tour's magic spreads far and wide. This unforgettable event will encourage our citizens to get on their bikes and expand their world.”
L'Alpe d'Huez
There are obvious challenges and limitations to how much of the countryside the Tour de France Femmes could traverse in just eight days of racing, so hitting the peaks of the Voges, Alps, and Pyrenees is simply not feasible.
However, the organisers have designed the previous two editions to showcase major summit finishes. The inaugural Tour de France Femmes boasted back-to-back Le Markstein and La Planche des Belles Filles in the Voges, both won by overall champion Annemiek van Vleuten in 2022. The Col du Tourmalet was the crowning moment of the 2023 edition, won by overall champion Demi Vollering in 2023.
According to a report byDauphiné Libéré, the final two days of the Tour de France Femmes are expected to take place in the Alps.
Stage 7 of the Tour de France Femmes is expected to finish at the ski station of Le Grand-Bornand in the Haute-Savoie of the northern Alps.
The 205km opening road stage will travel to the Adriatic coast and finish in Cesenatico, the birthplace of 1998 Tour de France winner Marco Pantani. The finish could suit the sprinters, but they face 32,700 metres of climbing in the hills between Tuscany and Emilia Romagna.
Stage 2 will start in Cesenatico and also climb into the rolling hills of Romagna for 200km before the finish in Bologna after two laps of the San Luca climb made famous by the Giro dell’Emilia. The third stage is a flatter affair and covers 225km from Piacenza to Turin for a sprint finish in the capital of Piedmonte.
The trio of stages will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ottavio Bottecchia’s Tour de France victory and remember other former Italian winners, Gino Bartali, Riccardo Nencini, Marco Pantani and Fausto Coppi.
The final stages have already been revealed, with stage 20 starting in Nice and heading inland into the tough climbs of Alpes-Maritimes. The 132km stage will include four climbs and end atop the Col de la Couillole, a 15.7km climb at 7.1%.
The final stage is a 35km hilly time trial from Monaco to Nice, which is expected to create a nail-biting finish to the 2024 Grand Boucle.
The time trial climbs the Col d'Eze (1.6km at 8.1%) and La Turbie (8.1km at 5.6%) before a long gradual descent to Nice.
It is the first time in history that the race will end outside of Paris and is the first time that the Tour de France concludes with a time trial since Greg LeMond dramatically pipped Laurent Fignon on the Champs-Elysées in 1989. Another thrilling finale could be on the cards.
Italy and Nice will bookend the 2024 Tour de France, with lots of other fascinating stages expected to be unveiled on October 25. This is what we know and expect as the race heads to Dijon, the Massif Central and the Pyrenees before returning to the Alps and then descending to Nice and the Mediterranean coast.
The start of stage 4 is expected to be in Pinerolo, east of Turin, before the race heads into France via the Alps.
Stage 4 will include some climbs in the high Alps as it crosses into France from Italy, possibly including the Col du Galibier, but the stage will finish in Valloire before heading west rather than include more early high mountains.
According to Velowire, the early stages in France will head to Dijon and the Cote d’Or wine region famous for its Burgundy reds. A sprint finish is expected on stage 6, with a time trial or even a team time trial on stage 7 through the vineyards.
First week ends with some gravel racing
The route will reach its most northerly point in Troyes, south of Paris, with the first rest day in Orléans on Monday, July 8.
According to L'Est éclair, stage 9 to Troyes will include several sectors of gravel, adding a twist to the racing.
The gravel roads around Troyes featured in the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes back in 2022, with a win for Marlen Reusser (SD Worx), while uphill gavel finishes at La Planche des Belles Filles in the men’s and women's race in 2022.
Tour de France technical director Thierry Gouvenou seems to like testing riders’ bike skills, even if a crash or puncture could wreck a rider’s overall hopes.
The second week of the 2024 Tour de France will include a ride south via the often hot Massif Central, with stage 10 set to finish Julian Alaphilippe’s hometown of Saint-Amand-Montrond.
The Tour will reach Pau on stage 13 and then climb into the Pyrenees with two mountain finishes.
Raymond Poulidor won at Pla d'Adet 50 years ago, and a stage finish there will recall when he dropped Eddy Merckx to win the stage.
The next day's stage will ride across several iconic Pyrenean mountains, including the Peyresourde and the Portet d'Aspet and then finish in Plateau de Beille. Joaquim Rodríguez won there when the Tour last visited in 2015, with Britain’s Thomas Gloag winning a stage of the Ronde l’Isard there in 2021.
The stage to Plateau de Beille should be on July 14, Bastille Day, so expect fireworks from the riders and all across France on their national holiday.
Across the south to the Alps
The riders are likely to enjoy the second rest day in Narbonne near the south of France on Monday, July 15.
Transition or breakaway stages follow to Nîmes and then to Super-Dévoluy ski resort on stage 17 before the showdown in the high Alps.
Little is known of stage 18 from Gap to Barcelonnette, but we expect it to be mountainous.
Much more is known of stage 19, with the Mayor of Nice confirming that the finish will be in the Isola 2,000 ski station in the southern Alps.
According to BFM TV, this stage will go over the Col de Vars before tackling Europe's highest road, the Cime de la Bonette (2,802 m), which would be the highest point of the 2024 Tour de France.
The stage could be short at around 130km but will surely be intense, with stage 19 and 20 offering the true finale to the 2024 Tour de France.
2025 Grand Depart in Lille, northern France
The official presentation in Paris often sees the confirmation of subsequent Grand Departs, with the start of the 2025 Tour de France likely to be revealed.
ASO has earned significant fees with recent editions of the Tour de France starting in Copenhagen, Bilbao and Florence but is under pressure to start in France in 2025.
The race is expected to start in northeast France, with Lille at the centre of several stages in the Hauts-de-France region, which sits between Paris and Belgium. A return to Brittany, the heartland of cycling in France, is likely in the first week before the Alps and Pyrenees and a return to the traditional finish in Paris.
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
