Tour de France 2026 Stage 13 Dole – Belfort (205 km)

The 205 km long 13th stage of Tour de France 2026  between Dole and Belfort will be held on the 17th July 2026. 

The route is heading to the Vosges, hosting the mountain stages of the end of the second week of racing. 

Belfort, the finish town is not far from Mulhouse, the second largest city after Strasbourg in Alsace, a heavy weight contenders in historical importance, even connected loosely to the birth of Tour de France. 

The family of Alfred Deyfus, the French army officer falsily accused of espionage was from Mulhouse originally. His case re-shaped even the landscape of the French press. One of the consequences in the field of media was the founding of L'Auto, the sport newspaper  needed a multiple days long cycling event to increase its selling numbers. 

The 13th stage of Tour de France, according to the already avaible informations will be hilly, including the Ballon d'Alsace, often dubbed as "the first real climb of Tour de France". The ascent was climbed by the peloton first in 1905. René Pottier was its first conquerer. 

(More info about the stage will come during the upcoming months)

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On this day in Tour de France history 

17 July 1952 - The introduction of Puy de Dôme to Tour de France 

The year of 1952 has brought some novelty to Tour de France:

the introduction of summit/ hilltop finishes. 

Although participants of the competition climbed the mightiest places in the Pyrenees since 1910, and the Alps since 1911 (also, the Mont Ventoux was introduced to the race just one year earlier, in 1951), the stages ended usually in towns in nearby valleys. 

Finishing a stage on the top required different logistics by the organizers and different tactics by riders and the crew behind them. The dynamics of Tour de France has changed forever. 

During the 1952 edition, there were already three summit finishes, Alpe d'Huez, Sestriere and Puy de Dôme. 

Fausto Coppi dominated the competition so well, that he won all the three stages. He  has won his second Tour de France, after winning the Giro d'Italia a few weeks earlier, as it happened in 1949 too, in the year of his first Tour de France victory. (This was the first ever Giro-Tour double in the history of road cycling.)

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Broader cultural-historical context of the stage 

Read some food/cuisine related stories from Alsace from my A cultural history of food micro-project: 

Choucroute and the politics of cabbage

Choucroute garnie's path to culinary fame was shaped as much by wars and shifting borders as by tradition.