Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme delved deep into the race's own history books to explain exactly why organisers have opted in 2027 to make the biggest increase in time trialling in the route in 15 years
Speaking to reporters after the route was revealed on Thursday, Prudhomme insisted that the idea of pushing the number of kilometres against the clock up to a combined total of 71 kilometres was not an anti-Tadej Pogačar measure.
Instead, Prudhomme cited time trialling star Bradley Wiggins, who conquered Britain's first Tour de France in 2012, and the rider voted the race's greatest ever climber, 1959 winner Federico Martín Bahamontes, to explain the TT increase.
Rather than looking back at just the last three editions of the race, where Tadej Pogačar has effectively made the battle for the yellow jersey a one-man show, Prudhomme used a much bigger context to explain what provides the chance – though it's far from guaranteed – for a radical switch in the balance of power between TT specialists and climbers
"The reason is simple, although we should put things into perspective, given we're in a world where people don't put things into perspective anymore," Prudhomme told reporters at the presentation, which revealed there'll be a 38-kilometre time trial on stage 7 and a 33-kilometre TT on stage 11.
"It's been 15 years since we've had so much time trialling, during the Tour won by Bradley Wiggins, and this is done with that in mind.
"Since then the riders who won in the time trials have also won in the mountains so it made no sense to extend the TT distances because the same people won, anyway.
"But now that's not the case, we've got different kinds of riders. It's just like back in the very distant era when Federico Bahamontes took time [in the mountains] on Jacques Anquetil," a renowned time trialling specialist.
"Now it's Remco Evenepoel who gains time against the clock, which he may lose in the mountains."
"It's not anti-Tadej Pogačar"
Prudhomme's comments about Bahamontes and Anquetil regarding balance could also have referred to the 1959 Tour, won by the Eagle of Toledo in part thanks to his crushing domination in a mountain time trial on the Puy de Dôme, where riders like Anquetil were pushed to nearly four minutes back. That said, Anquetil then regained more than five on Bahamontes in the race's final TT to Dijon, a massive 69 kilometres long. But there was some kind of balance, even if Bahamontes had done more than enough to win the Tour outright by that point.
In either case, Prudhomme argued, if Evenepoel was an example for now, it wasn't simply designed to favour one rider in particular. Rather, the question of having a much higher number of time trialling kilometres in 2027 was mainly to ensure that rather than any rider gaining too much of an advantage early on, the suspense could be maintained as long as possible.
"It's a question of resetting the balance, not for the organisers but all the fans who want there to be a fight right the way to the end," Prudhomme explained.
"It's not anti-Tadej Pogačar, you put pavé or time trials or climbs in front of him, he can take time and then he gains even more time on his rivals on the descents," he added, in reference to what Pogačar did on the descent of the Tourmalet on stage 6 last July, doubling his advantage over Jonas Vingegaard after dropping him close to the summit and all but winning the Tour in the process.
"If he [Pogačar] is stronger, he's stronger," Prudhomme added. "But there is a will to rebalance things, not for a single rider in particular, just like a few years ago we tried to make the route have a more punchy kind of course to try to boost the chances of a spectacular race.
"But in any case," Prudhomme concluded, making a wordplay on an old proverb, "the organisers propose and the riders dispose. That's always true."
"There are a lot of really tough unknown or semi-unknown climbs in this Tour"
While the increase in time trialling kilometres represented one big change in route trends, Prudhomme argued that the fans should not take it for granted that the mountains in the 2027 race would be a straightforward re-run of other years.
"I hope that people will be surprised, first on paper, then after being surprised on paper, in reality. Because there are a lot of really tough unknown or semi-unknown climbs in this Tour, and others which have been around but which don't have as fearsome a reputation as they deserve," he told reporters.
"So it's true we've got some classic climbs like the Tourmalet. But I'm thinking especially of the return of the Col de Burdincurutcheta, which is one of the hardest in the French Basque Country," he said of the early climb on stage 19, 8.7km long with average gradients of 9.3%.
"Then the Col du Pré, which is really daunting, too," he added of the Alpine climb, measuring 12.6km at 7.8%, which appears before the final ascent of Saisies on stage 11.
"Then there is the stage across the Massif Central with more than 3,800 metres of vertical climbing through beautiful but tough landscapes.
"Don't forget, too, that in the first week we're in Wales, there are climbs that are really hard, right from the gun on stage 3. I know the local people there are very proud of what will be on show in their part of the world that day."
One unusual feature of the Tour de France is its mini-homage to the 2027 UCI Cycling World Championships, the so-called 'Super Worlds', which will take place on the road in the northern Alps in late August and on the track in the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome near Paris.
Stage 10 will feature the circuit of the Côte de Domancy and finishes in Sallanches, where the road World Championships also took place in 1980 and will do again in 2027, whilst stage 21 starts in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and will go past the velodrome en route to the Champs-Élysées.
"We weren't going ever to do the World Championships before the World Championships actually took place, which is why there will only be two ascents of the Domancy and not 20," Prudhomme explained, "but that's where Bernard Hinault, a legend of the Tour, won the Worlds in 1980, so it's also to honour him."
"The climbs there aren't very high up, but the slopes are something special: short but really, really tough. So there will be lots to see that day, too."
And perhaps, too, in the time trials as well.
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