The 2026 Tour de France will meet the famous 21 hairpins of Alpe d’Huez on Friday, in the first of two back-to-back days scaling the famous peak. But it is the second journey, up the lesser travelled Col de Sarenne, which has provoked protest, a petition and criticism of race organisers.
The route for this year’s Tour was announced at a Paris ceremony last October. Saturday’s stage 20 immediately stood out, partly as a rare double ascent of Alpe d’Huez, perhaps the most famous mountain in Tour de France lore; and partly because the stage is brutal in its own right. It features 5,000m of elevation gain over four Tour behemoths: the Croix de Fer, the Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier, and finally the Col de Sarenne – the eastern back road up the Alpe – before an undulating final 14km to the finish, via the final four hairpins of the traditional route.
