It’s difficult to overstate how much the final stage of the Tour de France has meant to road cycling’s collective mythology. It has served as both exclamation mark and champagne toast, a day where sprint legends launched, where yellow jerseys cruised toward destiny, and where, for once, the tension of a three-week battle gives way to ceremony.
That will change in 2025. ASO is trading tradition for spectacle. How do we feel about that? And how hard will the course actually be?
How hard is it?
This week, ASO unveiled details of the final stage of the 2025 Tour de France. We knew it was going over the Montmartre climb up Rue Lepic past the iconic Basilica de Sacré-Coeur cathedral at the summit, but now we have the complete route.
What’s clear is that the traditional parade-turned-sprintfest is gone. In its place: a punchy, cobbled climb up to Montmartre, tackled three times in the closing circuits. The last of those ascents crests just over six kilometers from the finish, as always on the Champs-Elysées. If that sounds more like a Classics finale than a Tour one, that’s because it is.
The climb itself isn’t monstrous – 1.1 kilometers at 5.9% – but it’s tight, technical, and lined with cobbles. It’s inspired by the Olympic road race, where Remco Evenepoel soloed to victory. The Olympic spectacle clearly left an impression on Tour organizers. The Sacré-Cœur as a backdrop. Frenzied crowds stacked on the hillside, the steps to Sacré-Couer providing a kind of built-in grandstand. It was beautiful, no question. But a 50-rider Olympic bunch in a one-day race is not the same thing as a full Tour peloton with, possibly, a yellow jersey on the line.
The route will lap the Champs-Élysées four times before heading toward Montmartre via a pair of wide(ish) Parisian boulevards. The trip from the Champs to Butte Montmarte is relatively straightforward until Place Blanche, where the course begins to wiggle its way up the climb before hitting Rue Lepic, the same cobbled rise used in the Olympics. It’s lightly uphill on the way toward Montmartre, and downhill all the way back to Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Élysées.
It will be hard. The sprinters should rightfully feel like something has been taken away from them. Not only because of the climbs, but because the road narrows considerably as it reaches Place Blanche. Positioning will be crucial.
That said, a sprint finale with a decent-sized group, 50+ riders, is not impossible. Here’s why.
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