The Tour de France returns from its second rest day with an iconic test in the Alps: a summit finish on Mont Ventoux. At 171.5km from Montpellier to the legendary summit, stage 16 brings the race’s first high-altitude finish since the Pyrenees, and it could spark the most dramatic GC battle yet between Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.
Ventoux hasn’t hosted a summit finish since 2013, when Chris Froome delivered a dominant victory in yellow. Its absence from recent Tours has only added to the aura. With 15.7km of climbing at an average gradient of 8.8%, the Giant of Provence is the kind of climb where form, fatigue and fear all come into play.
The route – long, flat run-in followed by a legendary final climb
The stage starts in Montpellier and drifts gently north-east for more than 130km across the lower Rhône Valley. The early kilometres are undulating but not selective, with the intermediate sprint coming at Châteauneuf-du-Pape (km 112.4) on a day when sprinters will likely be saving their legs.
What follows is a long false-flat rise toward the base of Mont Ventoux. The terrain stiffens after Bédoin, where the HC climb begins in earnest. The road never lets up from that point: it rises steadily through forested slopes until Chalet Reynard, where the treeline ends and riders are exposed to the famous white scree slopes.
The final 6km are fully exposed, with no shade or shelter from the wind. Gradients rarely drop below 9%, and with the summit at 1,910m, there’s the added challenge of altitude. The final kilometre is brutally steep and straight, making it a true test of who has the legs after a rest day and two weeks of racing.
What’s on offer
Date: Tuesday, 22nd July
Distance: 171.5km
Start/Finish: Montpellier – Mont Ventoux
Sprint:
Châteauneuf-du-Pape (km 112.4)
Climbs:
Mont Ventoux (HC, km 165.3)
Prediction
With almost all the stage’s elevation gain crammed into the final 15km, it’s hard to imagine anything other than a GC showdown. Jonas Vingegaard dropped Tadej Pogačar on this mountain in 2021, but he’ll need to do much more than that this time to overturn his deficit. We think Pogačar, already with four stage wins to his name, will respond with force and take his fifth at the summit of Ventoux.
