TOUR DE FRANCE FEMMES AVEC ZWIFT

Get ready for nine more days of world-class racing, iconic climbs and thrilling rivalries

- 

If one season-defining bike race in France wasn’t enough for you, you’re in luck - here comes another in the form of the nine-day Tour de France Femmes, and it promises to be just as exciting.

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, to give it its full name, doesn’t exactly take up where the men’s event left off in Paris. Instead, it begins in Brittany, in France’s far northwest - an area the race visits for the first time.

The best riders in women’s cycling will line up to take what is arguably the biggest prize in the sport, despite the fact that this is only the race’s fourth edition. The 122-year history of the men’s race is stamped all over its sister event, with the same iconic jerseys and iconic battlefields too - this year, the parcours features the climbs of the Col de la Madeleine and the Joux-Plane.

This will be the first time the Tour Femmes is run over nine stages instead of eight, and it describes a broadly southeasterly line directly from Brittany down to what is likely to be a thrilling denouement in the Alps.

It begins with a brace of hilly stages, followed by a pair of flat days that should offer the sprinters their chances. One more (very) hilly day, and then things start to get mountainous as the race hits the Massif Central range.

That is followed by a small transfer, and then we're into the Alps, where the GC is very likely to be decided over three big days, including a summit finish on the Madeleine on stage eight.

Come along for the ride - it should be a cracker.

VANNES - PLUMELEC Saturday 26 July 78.8km