2026 Tour de France: Fans cover 8 million metres of elevation gain on the Tour route

​It was yet another Tour de France for the record books, as the average speed of the 2026 edition – 43.326 km/h – broke the record of 42.849 km/h set the previous year. The 2026 Tour also produced the fastest stage in the race’s history, the 11th stage, where aggressive riding and a crosswind/tailwind saw winner Søren Wærenskjold cross the finish line first at an average speed of 50.91 km/h. Other records broken include the fastest ascent of Alpe d’Huez, where overall winner Tadej Pogačar beat the previous best time, set by Marco Pantani in 1995, by more than a minute.

Fans cycle the climbs of the Tour de France

​But the fans also produced some impressive figures, as Strava shows. They, too, were cycling faster than last year. Across all stages, fans rode at an average speed of 33.6 km/h in 2026. This is a slight increase on the 32.4 km/h recorded in 2025. On Saturday 18 July (Stage 14), uploads on the Saint-Amarin climb and the Grand Ballon Vanaf Camping segment increased by around 15-fold and 7-fold respectively – Strava athletes were racing up the same mountains ahead of the pros. Strava users riding alongside the Tour peloton clocked up a combined total of over 8.09 million metres of elevation gain on this year’s route. The number of individual users who completed one of the race’s most iconic segments more than doubled during the Tour.

Calories burnt during the Tour de France

​The professional riders burned a total of over 9.6 million calories over the course of the Tour. Based on a standard butter croissant containing around 230 calories, that equates to over 41,000 croissants. This year, Tadej Pogačar secured new KOMs on Strava for two of the Tour’s most famous climbs (Côte du Buisson and Alpe d’Huez), thereby underlining his dominance throughout the race.

KOM at Alpe d’Huez

Tadej Pogačar’s stage victory at Alpe d’Huez was a show of strength. Although he started the climb some way behind, he overtook one rider after another. The segment’s KOM leaderboard illustrates his dominance:

The Frenchman Paul Seixas had an outstanding Tour de France on his debut. This is also reflected in the numerous KOMs he has collected. However, on occasion he was only faster than Pogi & Co. on the climbs. He had to relinquish a few records – but he’ll get over it. His summary of his first Tour: “Engine broken, 4th in the GC.” The data reveals what he got up to on the two rest days. Although his rides were limited in terms of time, he still racked up plenty of altitude metres.