Come 2027, the 114th edition of the Tour de France and the 6th edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will get the show on the road with a British trilogy.
The Grande Boucle, which has already touched English soil four times since 1974, is set to broaden its horizons with an adventure that will get under way in Scotland. The field will spring into action in Edinburgh and visit Wales before returning to England, for a total of three nations in one same Grand Départ.
It will be the second start of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift outside French borders —following the Grand Départ in the Netherlands in 2024— and its first on the other side of the Channel.
The Tour de France made landfall in England for the first time in 1974. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance consisting of a single stage held on a circuit in Plymouth. Twenty years later, the riders of the 1994 Tour marked the recent opening of the Channel Tunnel with two stages, one ending in Brighton and the other in Portsmouth.
Britain has hosted two memorable Grands Départs of the Tour de France in the 21st century, first in London in 2007 and then in Yorkshire in 2014. In summer 2027, the race will take this relationship to a whole new level, exploring three of the four Home Nations. The peloton of the Tour will make its first foray into Scotland, converging on Edinburgh for the beginning of an adventure that will also take it to Wales and England.
The Grand Départ in Britain will be the first overseas trip of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, which has yet to venture outside mainland Europe. It also sets the scene for another historic milestone, as this will be the first time that both events share a start —albeit on different dates— in a country other than France.
THE EIGHT STAGES OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE RACED IN ENGLAND
- 1974
> Stage 2, Plymouth > Plymouth, 163 km: victory for Henk Poppe (Hol)
- 1994
> Stage 4, Dover > Brighton, 204 km: Francisco Cabello (Esp)
> Stage 5, Portsmouth > Portsmouth, 187 km: Nicola Minali (Ita)
- 2007
> Prologue, London > London, 7.9 km: Fabian Cancellara (Sui)
> Stage 1, London > Canterbury, 203 km: Robbie McEwen (Aus)
- 2014
> Stage 1, Leeds > Harrogate, 190 km: Marcel Kittel (All)
> Stage 2, York > Sheffield, 201 km : Vincenzo Nibali (Ita)
> Stage 3, Cambridge > London, 155 km : Marcel Kittel (All)
