TOUR DE FRANCE FEMMES AVEC ZWIFT ROUTE GUIDE

With the Netherlands hosting the start and a grand finale on the Tour's most iconic climb, thrills are guaranteed

- Tom Davidson, Peter Cossins 

Even though the race name suggests otherwise, next year's edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift has the Netherlands at its core. So much so, in fact, that it almost seems as if the reigning champion Demi Vollering designed the route herself.

The third edition of the race will open with a Grand Départ in Rotterdam, half an hour's cycle from Vollering's birthplace, and will finish on Alpe d'Huez, a mountain famed for the revelry of Dutch fans on its slopes.

There are, of course, a few quirks along the way. Squeezed from eight days to seven and wedged in the calendar after the Paris Olympics, organiser ASO was determined to keep the same number of stages in 2024. As a result, there will be a two-stage day, with a short road stage on the morning of day two, followed by a short, all-out time trial in the afternoon.

Before the peloton first enters France - which does not come until the second half of stage fivethe organiser has pencilled in an ode to Liège-BastogneLiège. Stage four includes the Belgian Monument's iconic climbs of the Côte de la Redoute and the Côte de la Roche aux Faucons. Again, Vollering, a two-time winner in Liège, will be chuffed.

If the French feel aggrieved by the fact their race visits two countries before their own, the final weekend should please them. Forget a procession, the 2024 edition will finish with two gruelling days of climbing through the Alps, with a combined elevation gain of 7,000m.

The penultimate stage on Saturday is the race's longest day at 167km and finishes at the ski resort of Le GrandBornand, the site of an epic La Course duel in 2018, when Annemiek van Vleuten picked Anna van der Breggen's pocket metres before the line.