'It's looking very promising' – Remco Evenepoel delivers first reaction to favourable Tour de France 2027 route

Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) has delivered his initial verdict on the 2027 Tour de France route, saying "it's great" and that "it's looking very promising".

The time trial World Champion was the best of the rest behind Tadej Pogačar at this year’s Tour de France, and has been handed a favourable route next summer, with some 71 kilometres against the clock – the most since 2012.

On top of that, there are relatively few big mountain stages, with only two true summit finishes, as the organisers look to maintain suspense until the final week and the potentially decisive queen stage on stage 18.

"Pretty happy, obviously," Evenepoel said on the podcast of his bike sponsor, Specialized, recorded a couple of weeks ago and released on Thursday.

"I think it’s already a big step forward compared to last year’s, when we had a 26k individual time trial and a 20k team time trial. The year before was even less. So it’s great.

"I mean, a 38k and a 33k TT… The first one, from what I’ve seen is not technical at all, with long straights, so that’s really something that should suit me. Then the one in Toulouse is pretty flat until the little climb, I think it’s like a three-minute climb, so that’s something that suits me as well.

"I’m very happy," he added. "If you see it’s the most amount of time trial since 2012… still if you compare it to 2012 it’s quite a bit less, but I’m happy. It’s good. I would love it to be even a bit longer, but I’m very happy with what we got.

"Overall it’s looking very promising, the Tour," Evenepoel concluded.

Less climbing, too

As well as the increase in time trialling, Evenepoel was also buoyed by the reduction in climbing. There are still some 53,450 metres of elevation gain throughout the Tour but it’s spread across the terrain more evenly, and less concentrated in marquee mountain stages.

With a stage win on the Plateau de Solaison this year and no slip-ups in the final week, Evenepoel proved that climbing is hardly a weakness, though compared to his time trialling it’s less of a weapon, and he has been prone to off-days, even this season.

"Probably this year was suiting me even less than in 2024 but still I got second. I knew somewhere I was able to do it but having that much climbing in the last days was something new for me to show to myself and the cycling world," he said.

"But it’s true that with those time trials and the more punchy finishes towards the beginning, and with – what is it? – three summit finishes, it’s something that’s fitting me better than having 10 summit finishes."

Evenepoel, in a surefire sign that he’s building his season around the Tour de France once again, said he has already been thinking about how the race might play out for him next July.

And within the context of the race itself, he's building his race around those two time trials, the first covering 38km from Blois to Chambord on stage 7, the second kicking off the final week on stage 16 with 33km in Toulouse.

"We need to make kind of a race strategy to arrive to those at those TTs as fresh as possible and really drop the hammer big time. It’s a nice opportunity to take two stage wins and next to that obviously comes the time gaps for GC," he said.

"The run-in towards first TT is not crazy hard – there are some tricky stages but no big mountains. Then from the first TT there are two or three really tough days. It shows that I can take nice little advantage before going into the Alps, which will help. It can also give some comfort in the mind, going into the Alps with an advantage."

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