Tour de France 2026: Ballon d’Alsace awaits riders on testing stage 13 – live

Tour de France updates from 12pm BST/1pm CEST Stage-by-stage guide | Team guide | You can mail Tom Stage 13, Friday 17 July: Dole to Belfort, 205.8km Continue reading...

Stage 13, Friday 17 July: Dole to Belfort, 205.8km The first of three days of climbing in north-eastern France and the longest stage of the race, with the intermediate sprint in the village of Mélisey, home to the retired French hero Thibaut Pinot. There is plenty of distance to build a lead, so you would expect a win from the breakaway by a climber who is also a superlative descender, with the first category Ballon d’Alsace – the first mountain pass to feature in the Tour in 1905 – less than 15 downhill kilometres from the finish.

With a finale like this, supreme bike handler Tom Pidcock may fancy his chances. Strap in folks, we’re going long today. At least we might get something that resembles a breakaway today.

The intermediate sprint comes with 68 of the lengthy 205km to go, so unless the sprint teams fancy trying to neutralise 130-odd kilometres of attacks something will have to give. UAE Team Emirates may decide, as they have throughout this race, to give the escapists a short leash but so long as the composition is suitable this really could be a day where there is a chance of a breakaway winner. The Ballon d’Alsace is the big beast in the road book, a category one ascent of 8.9km at 6.9%, that clearly means the winner will need to be a more than decent climber, but they’ll also need to have the nous to get down the other side.

To me it looks like a Richard Carapaz kind of course and EF Education-Easypost are yet to get a stage win in this year’s Tour, but there will be a few frustrated riders in the peloton eyeing this up. Get the snacks in, settle in, this should be (we really hope) a bit of fun.