Tour de France season begins - Tadej Pogacar and Isaac del Toro spotted exploring key mountain stages
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar finished and won the Tour de Romandie on Sunday but he did not travel home from Switzerland right away. Before taking some time to rest and take on his first altitude camp ahead of the Tour de France; he first explored the route of one of the Tour's key stages.
The Slovenian rider has now ended his spring campaign, ending with victories at Strade BIanche, Milano-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liége and Romandie - alongside four stage wins. As dominant as ever, the World Champion has only missed the win at Paris-Roubaix, where he finished second to Wout Van Aert.
Isaac del Toro on the other hand won the UAE Tour and then also conquered the overall classification at Tirreno-Adriatico, making for a virtually spring until the month of April. He was meant to be in the Ardennes classics as well as Itzulia Basque Country, but in the latter he suffered a crash and sustained a leg injury as a result. The injuries do not threaten his summer campaign however, and he is currently training. Del Toro will race the Tour Auvergne - Rhône Alpes alongside Paul Seixas in June whilst Tadej Pogacar will race the Tour de Suisse.
Profile of stage 14 of the 2026 Tour de France
Exploring a tricky stage of the Tour de France
At the start of this week, before some well-deserved rest, Pogacar has made the short trip westward from Romandie to the Vosges mountain range in France, where he and Del Toro met up to explore the route of the Tour de France's 14th stage.
The route this year will feature mountain stages on all mountain ranges, and this will be the one day spent in the Vosges - on the eve of another key stage in the Alps which ends at the Plateau de Solaison.
In a short video that has been shared on social media, Pogacar and del Toro are seen climbing up the Grand Ballon, one of the six categorized climbs on this stage. On this stage there will be an ascent to the Ballon d'Alsace and then close to the finish the Col du Haag. The finale will be in the plateau at Le Markstein, as was previously the case too in 2023.
Furthermore, photographic evidence shows that on the 5th of May, Pogacar and Del Toro were on the Haute-Savoie region, taking on the climb to the Pleateau de Solaison, which ends the stage.
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A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
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- ridiculous. a normal racing incident. how lame do you have to be to complain about that?Ketterechts06-11-2026
- Rubbing is racing.
santiagobenites06-11-2026 - Throws an elbow, but crashes afterwards and he's upset.
Front24206-11-2026 - There should be nothing but praise for them: 1. Trying to make things safer, and 2. Trying something "new".acem8206-11-2026
- And a bit of a malcontent on top of it all that doesn’t help.mij06-11-2026
- Hopefully it was just a particularly bad year!Lozza05-11-2026
- He has the Twin combo of being vulnerable to germs and prone to crashes on top of not heeding the complaints from his body. Thats just crash and burn career.abstractengineer05-11-2026
- You can't complete a journey without taking next step. He has to do that or start looking for another job. I hope he can get his act together. It's a make or break next season for him. I wish him well.Cyclingsbestfan05-11-2026
- does anyone really think he is taking a next step?mij05-11-2026
- in the team’s defense, Bernal is 29. when he won his first TdF people were talking about him winning a record # of GTs. Where would they be if that crash had never happened. I’m not saying he would compete with Tadej, but he did podium Strade Bianche, and certainly could have won a GT that Tadej wasn’t in.mij05-11-2026
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