The street-by-street details for the six British-based stages that will open both the men's and women's editions of the 2027 Tour de France have been revealed. The three-week men's race gets under way with a stage from Edinburgh to Carlisle on 2 July. It is followed by a route between Keswick and Liverpool before Wales hosts a third and final grand depart stage from Welshpool to Cardiff on 4 July.
The women's event starts on 30 July with a race from Leeds to Manchester, before moving back across the Pennines to Yorkshire with a finish in Sheffield. A testing team time trial around the streets of central London will complete the opening section of that nine-stage race.
The collaboration is a first for both races in a Super Grand Depart. The finer details were announced at a ceremony hosted by the Tour's organisers ASO on Paris' Palais de Congres on Thursday. Men's race director Christian Prudhomme said: "Just a few weeks apart, the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will each take their respective pelotons on a journey through the roads of the United Kingdom."
The men's start at the foot of Edinburgh Castle will be the northernmost in the history of the Tour. Prudhomme added that Great Britain offers a symbol that further ties the two races together, from that Edinburgh start to a team time trial in London on 1 August. Stages of the Tour have been held in the UK before, in 1974, 1994 and 2007 in London, and the Yorkshire Grand Depart in 2014. This will be the first time both men's and women's events have come to the same nation outside France in the same year.
Source: BBC Sport · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing