The Tour de France Just Made the Anti-Pogačar Route for 2027

Want to make Tadej Pogačar work for a record sixth Tour de France?

Give Remco Evenepoel 71 kilometers against the clock, trim the summit finishes down to three, and deliver an old-school course without any gravel gimmicks or double assaults of Alpe d’Huez.

Perhaps that’s what ASO was thinking when the 2027 Tour de France route was unveiled Thursday in Paris with a course that some think could unsettle the world’s best cyclist.

Whether Evenepoel or anyone else can actually pull it off is another matter.

Two individual time trials in 2027 provide the most kilometers against the clock since 2012 when Bradley Wiggins won.

And with just three official summit finishes on the route, that’s fewer obvious opportunities for Pogačar to unload on his rivals.

And that presents an interesting question: Is this an anti-Pogačar Tour?

Tour officials deny they design a course in favor or against one rider’s abilities, and that also assumes anyone could design a course the Slovenian cannot conquer.

But will this Tour course give Evenepoel and others a fighting chance?

Just maybe.

Remco gets his opening

Evenepoel loves to time trial and this Tour is loaded with them.

The first is 38km from Blois to Chambord on stage 7 on a pure specialists course, followed by another 33km around Toulouse on stage 16 featuring a short ramp with 10km to go.

On paper, that should give Evenepoel — arguably the best time trialist of this generation — a huge advantage.

Both are strategically placed just before the decisive climbing blocks in the Alps and Pyrénées.

It’s the most TT miles in a Tour since Wiggins and the 2012 edition, when a prologue and two long TTs totaling just over 100km helped him win the UK’s first yellow jersey.

But how much time could Evenepoel actually take from Pogačar, who will be coming off his horrific crash at the Vuelta a España?

Let’s run some hypothetical numbers. One second per kilometer across 71km produces a cushion of 1:11. Double that and Evenepoel banks 2:22.

That’s also assuming a lot. Pogačar is no slouch against the clock, and usually gives away only a few fistfuls of seconds to Evenepoel.

Last year, he lost about 1 second per kilometer to Evenepoel in 26km late in the race when he already had yellow on ice. In 2025, when the TT came in the first week, Pogi only lost 16 seconds on 33km to Evenepoel.

But the layout for 2027 could set up an intriguing yo-yoing GC race if Pogi slightly bends the knee in the time trials.

A minute’s disadvantage would give Pogačar something to chase going into the Alps. Assuming Evenepoel can stay close, he might even be able to claw back more time and perhaps even reclaim yellow ahead of the Pyrénées.

That’s the highlight reel playing for everyone inside the Paris offices at ASO.

The bigger upside for the Belgian “aero-rocket” could come against everyone else.

Jonas Vingegaard can hold his own against the clock, but 71km gives Evenepoel a chance to build a buffer against the Dane and all the other podium contenders.

For other climbers dreaming of moving up the GC, these TT kilometers could torpedo their yellow jersey ambitions before the first week is out.

Pogačar can and will adapt

Or this Remco TT tailgate party might simply light Pogačar’s fuse to attack even more.

There’s been some grumbling that Pogačar’s relentless domination is getting boring.

Perhaps to counter that, the Tour braintrust delivered a relatively “old-school” Tour route.

There’s no first-week cobblestone stage or a hipster gravel route across the Vosges for Pogačar to smash everyone in the first week.

Even with the UK start, this is cookie-cutter stuff, with sprints and the first time trial stacked up before the Alps.

Some look to a relative dearth of summit finales with only three as evidence of another Anti-Pog bias.

It’s true that with only three true mountaintop finales, there are fewer favorable opportunities for Pogačar to crush souls. But make no mistake, Grand Colombier, Les Saisies, and the Col du Portet are the real deal. It will be a huge ask for Evenepoel or anyone else to even stay close to Pogačar once he’s off the leash.

But this Tour route is harder than it looks on paper. The entire Tour route still stings with 53,450 meters of total climbing, and there are three more brutal mountain stages across the Alps, the Massif Central, and Pyrénées.

Sallanches packs 3,750 meters of climbing in a dress rehearsal for worlds. Mende stings at the end of a march across the Massif Central. And the penultimate mountain stage into Laruns delivers another 4,300 meters.

Those are massive Pogačar opportunities to make up for any lost ground.

Sleeper route for Seixas?

Christian Prudhomme and company might be in for a rude surprise if they’re hoping their course will somehow muzzle Pogačar.

One can already imagine the Slovenian and UAE brass going over the race details.

Pogačar is known to attack at any point, so who’s to say he might not try to drive a split in the first week if the wind kicks up in Brittany?

It’s the other non-summit finales that could prove most pro-Pog.

Stage 10 is a dress rehearsal for the road worlds, with double-passage up and down the Côte de Domancy (2.5km at 9.4%) with 3750m of climbing with a downhill blinder to the line.

The final mountain stage to Laruns sends the race over Burdincurutcheta, Bagargui, Soudet, and Marie Blanque before the descent to the finish.

And there’s still the decisions to come on who’s racing where. Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel all seem destined on a Tour rematch.

But perhaps more than Evenepoel, this route could favor Paul Seixas.

He can time trial as well as Pogačar and has the potential to climb even better than Evenepoel in the six mountain stages.

There are whispers that Seixas might opt to race the Giro d’Italia next year in a chance to win a grand tour, but this Tour route might tempt him back.

More than Evenepoel, this route could be ideal for Seixas to go even further than he did with fourth in his 2026 debut and perhaps even take it to Pogačar.

A good argument for three weeks

For all the talk about shortening grand tours, this route offers a compelling defense of the three-week tried-and-true format.

You don’t want Evenepoel, Pogačar or anyone wrapping up the Tour so early.

That’s why three weeks matters. Who knows what would have happened had Vingegaard not crashed out of last year’s Tour at the start of week three?

There’s room for more than the yellow jersey battle in this route as well.

The opening stage from Edinburgh to Carlisle gives the sprinters a shot at yellow. Libourne offers another opportunity on the penultimate day, a useful incentive to drag themselves through the Pyrénées with up to seven sprints along the way.

Montmartre is back to give the Tour the exclamation ending it so needed.

Overall, it’s a balanced, interesting enough Tour route. And Pogačar could attack in just about every stage if he wanted to.

Is this Tour Anti-Pogi? No route can be for a rider with his pure class.

But could it set up a new kind of challenge for Pogačar if Evenepoel delivers big in the time trials, with Seixas waiting to play the ultimate spoiler?

Just maybe.