2026 Tour de France Femmes: A battle of the bikes on the Col d’Eze

The curtain rises on the finale. The route planners have come up with something rather unusual. The final stage, from and to Nice, is designed as a short mountain criterium, covering 99.2 kilometres. No early fatigue, no preliminary skirmishes. The action kicks off immediately after the start. The route layout promises maximum excitement right up to the finish, especially as the final climb takes a more direct, steeper route up the Col d’Eze than the previous laps. On the final ascent, riders will have to tackle gradients of up to 13 per cent for short stretches. The 491 metres of elevation gain per lap are inherently selective. But it’s not just the climbs that promise excitement. The finish at the port of Nice is reached via a fast descent that also features several tight bends.

Whether the battle for the overall classification is still up for grabs or it’s ‘just’ about winning the stage, the race promises to be incredibly exciting.

The number of the day: 50 seconds

Our simulation of the day is an attack on the steep section of the Col d’Eze during the final ascent.

What role does the team play in turning the attack into a stage victory?

On the steep section, weight clearly makes a difference. Anyone tackling a 13 per cent gradient wants to feel as little of the bike beneath them as possible. The UCI minimum weight is therefore a given. Further on, however, the gradient levels out and is eventually followed by a descent. Here, speed is key, so the best possible aerodynamics are essential.

Anyone who has been following the tech briefing up to this point will know what that means. The fastest bike combines a low weight with good aerodynamics. Our simulation provides the hard facts: the Cervélo S5 covers a whopping 50-second lead compared to a bike that’s only slightly lighter, its sister model, the Cervélo R5.

The Colnago Y1RS, which came second, illustrates the impact of an extra 400 grams: on climbs, the bike loses five seconds compared with a bike at minimum weight. The Ridley Noah Fast, which is 900 grams heavier, loses 11 seconds on the climb. This shows just how important it is to trim the bikes down to exactly 6.8 kilos. And the lighter the rider, the more crucial this becomes.

It makes absolutely no sense to sacrifice the last 400 grams for sponsorship reasons. When the race is close, every gram counts.

However, to maintain the lead right to the finish line, everything else has to fall into place too. The simulation shows that, from a technical point of view, the clock ticks even faster on the downhill section – even though the actual riding time downhill is much shorter.

An overview of the (almost) full line-up*:

* Simulation calculations

Based on our own wind tunnel tests, we carry out simulation calculations for the Tour de France tech briefing. How TOUR tests: Aero road bike test in the wind tunnel.

We are investigating which wheels can offer a technical advantage in which situations. The variables we can control in the simulation include wheel weight, rider weight, the inertia of the wheels, the drag coefficient, the rolling resistance coefficient and the efficiency of the drivetrain.

To model ride times, we use realistic power outputs and weights for the riders, combine these with our wind tunnel data, and have the riders race virtually along selected sections of the route, which we extract from the official route data; the derived elevation profiles are key to this. The modelling also includes bends, which we can brake for realistically, and adjustable power profiles for different types of riders. This allows us to distinguish between attacks on climbs and proper final sprints. Taken together, this makes the simulation very realistic. What we cannot replicate, however, are dynamic handling effects such as the individual behaviour of the wheels on different surfaces.

The journey times calculated for the sections of the route that are decisive for the race highlight the influence of the wheels – provided that the riders always behave in the same way in a given scenario.