Voiron to Orci\u00e8res-Merlette: 185.2km\/3900m<\/b><\/p>\n
This is the sort of\u00a0Tour de France\u00a0stage that breakaway riders circle months in advance.<\/p>\n
With Alpe d\u2019Huez and the Tour\u2019s final decisive mountain battles stacked up in the Alps, many of the yellow jersey contenders may be content to save their bullets for the looming bigger prizes.<\/p>\n
That could open the door for one of the strongest escapes of the 2026 Tour.<\/p>\n
It has all the ingredients to favor an early break, and the final climb to Orci\u00e8res-Merlette averages 6.7 percent at 7.1km, steep enough for the pure climbers but not so difficult that a well-organized breakaway can\u2019t survive.<\/p>\n
This opens three brutal stages in the mountains to close out the 2026 Tour. The mountain goats have been champing at the bit all month for these stages.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Start<\/strong>:\u00a06:35 a.m. ET<\/li>\n
- Est. Finish<\/strong>:\u00a011:12 a.m. ET<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAndrew Hood<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nUpdated July 22, 2026 12:16PM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/tour-de-france-stage-18-preview-2026\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/stage-18.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated July 22, 2026 12:16PM Voiron to Orci\u00e8res-Merlette: 185.2km\/3900m This is the sort of\u00a0Tour de France\u00a0stage that breakaway riders circle months in advance. With Alpe d\u2019Huez and the Tour\u2019s final decisive mountain battles stacked up in the Alps, many of the yellow jersey contenders may be content to save their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2058859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2058859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2058859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2058859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2058859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Est. Finish<\/strong>:\u00a011:12 a.m. ET<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n