L'etape du Tour 2026

Name: L'etape du Tour 2026
Start: 2026-07-19T05:00:00+02:00
Location: Bourg D'oisans

Schedule

Sun, 19 Jul, 2026 at 05:00 am

UTC+02:00

Location

Bourg D'oisans | Grenoble, RH

L’Étape du Tour 19th July 2026
170 km and massive 5,400 m of elevation, the 2026 Etape again returns to Alpe D’Huez however not via the 21 bends.
Let’s take a quick Look at the course.
Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Télégraphe, and Col du Galibier. The final climb to Alpe d’Huez, via the rarely used Col de Sarenne.
Those familiar with the area and especially riders who have completed the Marmotte Granfondo will be very familiar with this route, perhaps apart from the final climb of the Col de Sarenne.
This Marmotte Granfondo video covers around 75% of the route and will give you a feel for the severity of the 2026 Etape. ��Notably, the Marmotte traverses the Col du Glandon which shares the same road as the Col de la Croix de Fer with the Croix de Fer summit just a couple of kilometres after the the turn off of the Glandon. If you rode the Marmotte in 2023, you may recall that year the Marmotte went over the Croix de Fer.

We rejoin the Marmotte course once descended into the Maurienne Valley - always a headwind up to St Michael de Maurienne where you join the Telegraph. Over the Telegraph and the Glibber, down to the Lauteret junction and through the tunnels its then a sharp right in Mizöen up a super steep start to the Col de la Sarenne.

Whilst this next video is out and back to the Sarenne summit from Alpe D’Huez - it does give you a feel for the remoteness of the Col de la Sarenne, the quality of the road surface and towards the end of the video the final few kilometres of the L’Etape du Tour 2026.