Tour de France season begins - Tadej Pogacar and Isaac del Toro spotted exploring key mountain stages

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.

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.