Further details of the 2027 Tour de France Femmes Grand Départ were revealed on Monday, with the UK hosting the first three stages of the race and London set to be the scene of its first-ever team time trial.
2027 marks the first time the women’s race – by then in its sixth year – will step foot on British soil, while the men’s race will return for the third time this century, after starts in 2007 and 2014. It will mark the first time that both races will kick off in the same country, outside France.
The race is expected to be the most-attended women’s sporting event ever held in Britain, with British Cycling and ASO – the Tour’s organisers – estimating some 10 million people will line the streets to cheer on the peloton.
Stage one of the Tour de France Femmes will begin in Leeds and head to Manchester, before stage two moves from Manchester to Sheffield via the Peak District. Stage three will be a team time trial passing by many of London’s iconic landmarks.
From a British point of view the presence of 19-year-old Movistar rider Cat Ferguson, who could make her Tour debut in 2027, will mark a full circle moment from that 2014 edition. Then aged eight, the Yorkshire native was inspired by watching the men’s peloton race past on her home roads, and hopes that the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes to visit the UK will have a monumental impact on women’s cycling in years to come.
She told press on Monday: “Arguably we’re going to the two most iconic places in the UK, Yorkshire and London. I remember when the Tour came to Yorkshire in 2014, every time I go back home and train on those roads, I remember sitting on the side of the road with my parents.
“I’ll give it my all to be on the start line. I don’t think I’ll ever get an opportunity [again] to race on my home roads, with local voices and accents cheering me on.
“I’d like to think I could be an example [of the visible impact the Tour can have], and if we’d had a women’s race in 2014, how many more girls it could have inspired. That’s what we’re hoping to achieve next year. It worked for me, the men really inspired me, but the participation numbers for girls specifically could have increased [with a Tour de France Femmes]. I think next year is going to be crazy.”
Fellow Brit, Fenix-Premier Tech rider Flora Perkins, added: “I think with things like the Olympics or the men’s Tour starting here, we’ve always seen that there’s been a peak in cycling interest after that, and that’s what we hope for this time round, that people who haven’t come in contact with cycling before see this bike race and see especially women at the top end of the sport competing and think, ‘This is great, I love this, I want to do this more often’ or ‘I want to watch these women more often’.”
Race director Marion Rousse described the British Grand Depart as a “hugely historic moment” for the Tour de France Femmes and a “huge step forward for women’s cycling”. She said: “The three stages will be harder than they seem. [For] the young riders coming through, it’s wonderful that they’ll have the opportunity to be part of a race which is what women’s cycling deserves.
“I remember watching what was going on in Yorkshire [in 2014] and seeing just how many people lined the streets to watch the race, it was a standout event in the history of the race and we’re really hoping to see similar support.”
Stage one, on Friday 30 July 2027, will begin in Headrow in the centre of Leeds, mimicking the path of the men’s peloton in the 2014 Grand Depart. The 86km route, which crosses the Pennines and passes through Huddersfield and the Peak District National Park en route to a city centre finish in Deansgate, Manchester, will be “short, dynamic and tough,” according to Rousse.
Stage two will similarly echo Tour de France history in the UK, with the finish in Sheffield re-using elements of the parcours from the 2014 Tour, when Vincenzo Nibali won and took yellow on stage two en route to his one and only overall victory.
Rousse described stage two as “probably the hardest stage that we’ve had in a Grand Depart”. “There’s not one single flat kilometre,” she said. “The magic of the Tour is really going to come to life. This is going to be a Classic race and we can compare it to Liege-Bastogne-Liege next Sunday.”
The stage will incorporate 3,000m of climbing across 154.4km and tackle some of the north-west’s biggest climbs, including the Winnats Pass (1.4km at 12.3%) and Snake Pass (5.4km at 4.6%). Two short, punishing ascents in Sheffield which the men’s race summited in 2014, the Côte d’Oughtibridge (1.5km at 9.1%) and the Côte de Jenkin Road (0.8km at 10.8%), will prove crucial.
Ferguson has previously trained in the area alongside close friend and Visma-Lease a Bike rider Imogen Wolff, who is from south Yorkshire, and summed up the opening two stages as “super brutal”.
Stage three will start and finish in the capital, with the teams racing over a central London circuit for around 18km, passing by the Houses of Parliament, London Eye and Tower Bridge en route to a finish on The Mall – the start and finish location for the London 2012 Olympic Games road race, won by Britain’s Lizzie Deignan (then Armitstead).
Rousse said: “The Tour is seen from the sky with a [TV] helicopter but the city streets are our stadium, so we’ll make the most of the environment to showcase the best of London.”
