Tour de France 2026 Starts With A Massive Twist: Team Time Trial

If you're going to have a TT, this is the way to have it. A team time trial in this new format where the team propels its GC rider to the best possible result and everyone else is left to fight on their own. This is how the 2026 Tour de France begins in Barcelona. Stay close to the Action with RUVI, the indoor cycling app that lets you ride, race and train on the same routes as the pros. Real routes, real results. ASO, the Tour de France organizer has been in the lab, test tubes, mixing different formulas, trying to come up with the best possible format for the beloved, some would say beloved, team time trial. We used to have them back in the day. They used to run 100 kilometers. In recent times, you'd have them maybe running 20, 30 kilometers. Nine men out there in beautiful formation, all in the same kit, all with the objective to get their fourth or fifth place best rider over the line first because the time was taken on that rider and everybody in the team got the same time. Over time, things changed. Smaller teams at the Tour de France, now we have eight man teams at the Tour de France and the team time trial at times have fallen out of favor here and there, coming back and forth. But then over in Paris-Nice, the stage race in March, the ASO organization, the same organization as the Tour de France who organizes Paris-Nice, they started to introduce this new format of the team time trial where each rider has his own time coming across the line. That means a team can decide on a strategy. They can decide to propel just one rider as a sprint lead out of sorts to get that ride over the line first. However, it's best if it's a lead out and to launch that rider to do his own thing for the last kilometer, last 300 meters, or to stick with them all the way to the end, all eight riders or the last three riders rotating until the end, until they try to get the best time possible. First ride over the line gets the team time that will count in the classification for the stage. However, each rider's time is taken individually and that'll go for the GC. It was a new format that personally I loved. I'm not a big fan of time trials. Individual time trials, well, it's the worst type of format of a stage that I think exists. If you're going to have a time trial, I prefer a team time trial. It's over faster. But if you're going to have a team time trial, then I like this format. Scratch the old format, bring me this new format. ASO got my call back in the labs mixing their chemical concoctions, what they were doing, coming up with the best possible format, must have heard my call. Because after a few years of testing in the Paris-Nice stage race, they popped it into what was formerly called the Criterium du Dauphiné, which is now called the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. And there it was in Peru at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, 28.4 kilometers. It made its debut in their next big stage race heading towards the Tour de France. The race is also run by ASO and they tested it. Team time trial super team, Wiesmann-Liesebaeck won the stage with Matteo Jorgensen. I think, and if you ask the team, they're going to think as well, it was a success. So now the Tour de France, the organization ASO, is taking it to their big event. And this is how the 2026 Tour de France starts. You're going to see different tactics played out. Teams try to launch their riders in different ways. How will UAE Team Emirates try to launch Tadé Pogacar? But also keeping in consideration, maybe they want to have Isaac del Toro there up at the top as well. All for Paul Sexass and Team Decathlon. Team Wiesmann-Liesebaeck has Matteo Jorgensen, who won the day in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. But they also have, of course, Jonas Vingegaard, who will be fresh off the heels of a Giro d'Italia victory. So the teams will try different strategies. But one thing's for certain, the fans will be treated to this new format, not yet seen at the Tour de France, seen at the Paris-Nice stage race over the last few years, and debuted this year at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and now making its debut at the big one, the Tour de France in Barcelona, 19 kilometers in Barcelona. This is how the Tour kicks off. This first day will be make or break for teams and their GC stars as they want to hope to try to fight for victory in the overall of the race that last 21 days. Gains and losses will count up and they'll be multiplied exponentially as we go on through the next days. So every team will want to bring their A-game on this day one, and every team will be doing tests, practice runs ahead of the Tour de France. Some of the teams will have done them in racing at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Other teams will be doing them in camps at F1 tracks, specific gear, helmets, overshoes, kits, what skin suits are they going to be wearing. Everything will come into play on that day when the Tour de France kicks off in Barcelona because this is the Tour de France. This is the biggest race of them all. This is day one. This is where you're going to make your impression or you can make a really bad result on the day that's going to stick with you for the like a bad stink on your shoe when you stepped in some poo for the rest of the three weeks. This is where it all matters. Day one in Barcelona, Spain. We're treated to a new format, a time trial, a team time trial, where the riders like Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Paul Sexas will show the world what they've got in the 2026 Tour de France.