Tour de France Femmes 2027 swaps its time trial for a team effort in London and finishes on the Puy de Dôme
The nine-stage race starts in Leeds on 30 July and ends on 7 August on a volcano whose final kilometres were closed to spectators when the men last went there. Local authorities have not yet decided whether fans will be allowed.
The 2027 Tour de France Femmes will hold the first team time trial in its history, through central London, and finish on the summit of the Puy de Dôme, race director Marion Rousse revealed in Paris on 22 October.
The sixth edition runs over nine stages and 1,156 km, from Leeds on Friday 30 July to the Puy de Dôme on Saturday 7 August, according to the official route. There is no individual time trial, and no stage in the Alps or the Pyrenees. Riders will climb 17,665 metres in total.
Demi Vollering, who won the race in August and the world title in September, will be defending the yellow jersey.
Three days in England
The race starts with the three British stages that ASO announced in January. Stage 1 crosses the Pennines from Leeds to Manchester over 86 km. Stage 2, 154 km from Manchester to Sheffield, goes through the Peak District over climbs including Winnats Pass (1.4 km at 12.3 per cent) and Snake Pass, Domestique reported, and Rousse compared it to Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
On Sunday 1 August, teams ride an 18 km time trial in London. BikeRadar reported that it finishes on The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace.
“The team time trial is a notable feature. It’s an event we haven’t seen before in the Tour de France Femmes,” said Jos van Emden, a sports director at Visma | Lease a Bike, according to Cyclingnews. “I’m a fan of team time trials.”
North to south through France
The race resumes in France on Monday 2 August, from Le Touquet-Paris-Plage to Calais over 123 km. ASO classes three stages in France as flat: that one, Neufchâtel-en-Bray to Magnanville (161 km) and Orléans to Bourges (138 km). Cyclingnews expects the hills on the run-in to Magnanville to tempt the favourites.
The climbing is concentrated in the last three days, in the Massif Central.
- Stage 7, 5 August: Nevers to La Loge des Gardes, 155 km. The first summit finish, on a 6.7 km climb at 7.1 per cent, Domestique reported.
- Stage 8, 6 August: La Bourboule to Clermont-Ferrand, 151 km. It crosses the Col de la Croix Saint-Robert, at 1,451 metres the highest point of the race, and the Côte de Charade before a descent to the finish.
- Stage 9, 7 August: Clermont-Ferrand to the Puy de Dôme, 170 km. The longest stage and the hardest, with 3,840 metres of climbing and a final ascent of 11.3 km at 7.8 per cent, according to ASO and Domestique.
A different shape of race
The route changes the balance for the favourites. In 2026, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the 2025 winner, lost two minutes to Vollering and Marlen Reusser in the 21 km time trial to Dijon, Cyclingnews reported. With no individual time trial in 2027, the specialists will instead be limited by the strength of their teams in London.
The longest climbs of recent years have also gone. “The first thing that stands out to me is how different this Tour is from the editions in recent years. The high mountains are missing,” Van Emden said. He expects “the general classification contenders will be fighting for every second in every stage.”
A question over spectators
When the men’s Tour last finished on the Puy de Dôme, in 2023, spectators were kept off the final 4 km to protect the environment of the volcano, which has a single road to the top beside a working railway, Cyclingnews reported. Rousse said that nothing had been decided for 2027 and that the local authorities would decide nearer the time whether fans could watch on the climb.
The men’s Tour finishes in Paris on 25 July, five days before the Femmes begins in Leeds.
