Tour de France 2026 stage 6 preview - Showdown among GC favourites Pogačar and Vingegaard expected on most demanding day in the Pyrenees
July 9, 2026; Pau - Gavarnie-Gèdre, 186km, mountainous
- Stage 6: Pau to Gavarnie-Gèdre
- Date: July 9, 2026
- Distance: 186.2km
- Start time: 12:25 CET
- Finish time: 17:46 CET
The first mountain showdown of the 2026 Tour de France will take place on the Col du Tourmalet on Thursday, with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) expected to attack Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and his other GC rivals to try to gain time.
Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) leads by 7:53 and is likely to keep the yellow jersey but Pogačar and Vingegaard are equal on time and likely to battle for every possible second.
Pogačar's UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad had identified stage 6 as their first five-star stage of the 2026 Tour. They have already won stage 2 with Isaac del Toro and stage 3 with Pogačar but at least in GC terms 'the real Tour starts on stage 6.'
"At the Tour de France, you can lose everything in a moment, so we need to stay focused on every stage," Pogačar's trusted Sports Director Andrej Hauptman told Cyclingnews.
"Stage 6 is one of the hardest stages at Tour, so we'll see where we all are. It will be hard. First they have to climb the Col d'Aspin and then they have the Col du Tourmalet."
The 186.2km stage includes 4100 metre of altitude gain, with riders facing more French canicule heat and high temperatures.
The stage includes the Col d'Aspin, the Col du Tourmalet and ends with a new finish climb to Gavarnie-Gèdre, a Unesco World Heritage Site, and a vast natural amphitheatre that will turn the stage finish into a cycling stadium.
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The stage starts in Pau, in the shadows of the Stade Gaston Lacosse and amongst the Tour des Géants open air park that remembers the greats of the Tour and the Pyrenees. The opening 100km are on valley roads towards Lourdes and the high peaks of the Pyrenees, with two early climbs to inspire the breakaways and those fighting for the polka-dot mountains jersey.
The Col d'Aspin begins after Arreau and climbs for 12km at 6.5%. It is often twinned with the Col du Tourmalet and hurts because the last part kicks-up at 8%. The riders will pass the white marble statue that remembers Italy's Fabio Casartelli, who tragically died in 1995 while descending at speed.
The descent of the Col d'Aspin leads to the foot of the eastern side of the Col du Tourmalet that climbs via the La Mongie ski resort. It passes Sainte-Marie-de-Campan in the valley, where in 1913 Eugène Christophe famously repaired his fork at a forge after wrecking his bike on the Tourmalet.
- The first rider to cross the Tourmalet wins €5,000 for the Souvenir Jacques Goddet.
- Points at finish: 20-17-15-13-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
The Tourmalet was first raced in 1910 after French journalist and race collaborator Alphonse Steinès visited the area, tried to reach the summit and then sent a telegram to legendary race director Henri Desgrange: "Crossed Tourmalet stop. Very good road stop. Perfectly feasible".
The first rider to the summit is awarded the Souvenir Jacques Goddet prize that remembers the Tour director who helped globalise the Tour de France during his long reign between 1936 and 1987.
The Tourmalet is a Hors Category climb and the road climbs from Sainte-Marie-de-Campan for 17.1km at 7.3%. It is one of the legendary mountains of the Tour de France and has been climbed over 80 times, writing some of the greatest pages in the history of the Tour.
Due to the high summit, the Tour has only dared to finish at the 2115-metre summit on three occasions. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Danguillaume suffered terribly to win alone in 1974. Andy Shleck won in the mist in 2010 and then in 2019 Thibaut Pinot won with a late attack ahead of Julian Alaphilippe to send the French fans crazy. He appeared to have a real chance of overall victory but was forced to abandon in tears during stage 19 to Tignes.
Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) is the new French idol and will receive similar support on Thursday as he faces his first Tour test and tries to take on Pogačar.
This year the riders descend off the Tourmalet towards Super Barèges and then turn left up the valley towards the Spanish border. There are 38km to race at the summit, with 18km on the spectacular descent road.
The gradual climb to the finish in Gavarnie-Gèdre begins with 18.7km to go, with the road climbing at just 3.7%. The ease of the gradient will add a tactical twist to the stage and influence how it will be raced.
Teams will surely try to place a satellite rider in the early breakaway so they can be there to help their team leaders after the Tourmalet and on the fast road to Gavarnie-Gèdre.
That is an easy tactic to describe but far harder to execute. However, we can expect UAE to try to place Brandon McNulty or even Adam Yates in the attack, while Vingegaard may hope to have Sepp Kuss up the road and Remco Evenepoel may ask Jai Hindley to play a vital team role at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. The stage will test Red Bull's dual leadership strategy and show who, between Evenepoel and Florian Lipovitz, who is climbing better.
"It'll be important to have us with as many riders with Tadej after the Tourmalet but that's not easy," Hauptman told Cyclingnews.
"It's not easy because our rivals know what our goal is but we will try to do our best."
Hauptman refused to reveal his full stage strategy but would surely like to quickly isolate Vingegaard from any of his Visma teammates, while Pogačar and Del Toro stay together. Then a major Pogačar attack on the Tourmalet could join a satellite rider to gain time on the road to the finish.
"That would be nice but it all depends on what happened during the first part of the stage," Hauptman pointed out, knowing the early kilometres will be fast and furious as riders try to get into the right attack.
"What was possible three days ago is one thing but on the climbs things could be very different. We have to be ready to react.
"We have plans but then reality is totally different, and you need to react and change the plan and the goals. Whatever happens on the Tourmalet, we hope to be ready."
Mountains
- Côte de Loucrup (cat. 4, 1.9km at 7.1%), km. 50.9
- 1 pt
- Côte de Mauvezin (cat. 3, 3km at 6.8%), km. 77.3
- 2-1 pts
- Col d'Aspin (cat. 1, 12km at 6.5%), km. 118.1
- 10-8-6-4-2-1 pts
- Col du Tourmalet (cat. HC, 17.1km at 7.3%), km. 147.8 - Souvenir Jacques Goddet
- 20-15-12-10-8-6-4-2 pts
- Gavarnie-Gèdre (cat. 2, 18. km at 3.7%), km. 186.2
- 5-3-2-1 pts
Sprints
- Pouzac, km. 59.1
- 25-20-16-14-12-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 pts
Time limit
Est Speed |
Winner's time |
Limit % |
Max gap |
|---|---|---|---|
40kph |
4:39:18 |
19% |
0:53:04 |
39kph |
4:46:28 |
18% |
0:51:34 |
38kph |
4:54:00 |
17% |
0:49:59 |
37kph |
5:01:57 |
16% |
0:48:19 |
36kph |
5:10:20 |
15% |
0:46:33 |
Stephen is one of the most experienced members of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. Before becoming Editor-at-large, he was Head of News at Cyclingnews. He has previously worked for Shift Active Media, Reuters and Cycling Weekly. He is a member of the Board of the Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC).
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