The 2026 Tour de France kicked off in Barcelona. The first week (okay 9 days) of the Tour offered a little bit of everything: a time trial, three different yellow jerseys, breakaway wins, sprint win, punchy climbs, and longer climbs. Read on for the week 1 recap with stage-by-stage summaries! And, to celebrate the Tour kickoff in Barcelona I made churros!
Stage by Stage Recaps
Stage 1 – TTT in Barcelona
The Tour opened with a mostly flat, 19.6 km long, team time trial (TTT). This year’s TTT featured new rules where the fastest rider for a team set the team time, but each rider’s time is counted individually. Netcompany Ineos was one of the favorites because they had several time trial specialists including Filippo Ganna on their roster. But Visma Lease-a-Bike won the stage by setting a fast pace on the flat, giving Jonas Vingegaard plenty of time to race up the final climb. Visma got their first stage win, and Jonas his first yellow jersey. His lead over Pogacar was 11 seconds at the end of stage 1.
Stage 2 – Hilly Circuit in Barcelona
Stage 2 was a hilly circuit, 168 km long with nearly 2,000 meters of climbing across the course’s 4 categorized climbs. By the final circuit there was a reduced peloton with many of the GC contenders. UAE managed a 1st and 2nd place win with Isaac Del Toro getting his first ever Tour de France stage win. Pogacar crosses the line second, gaining 6 bonus seconds to reduce Vingegaard’s lead in the yellow jersey.
Stage 3 – Crossing the Pyrenées
Stage 3 was a soft mountain stage as the peloton traveled 196 km across the Pyrenées into France from Granollers in Spain. Over the course the peloton covered 4,100 meters of climbing across 4 categorized climbs. Wildfires in the region posed a risk to the stage, but ultimately it proceeded as planned. While a breakaway formed UAE controlled the stage showing they wanted the stage win. The last of the breakaway was caught before the final climb, and Pogacar attacked in the final couple hundred meters to win the stage. He gained 10 bonus seconds with the stage win with enough of an advantage to erase the rest of the time gap between him and Jonas Vingegaard, taking his first yellow jersey of the Tour.
Stage 4 – Medium Mountains to Foix
Stage 4 was another stage with small/medium mountains. The peloton faced 2,677 meters of climbing across 182 km and 4 categorized climbs. With the final climb over 30km from the finish line, it offered the first real breakaway opportunity of the tour. Lidl-Trek was determined to fight for the stage and had three strong riders in the ten-man break at the end of the stage. This ultimately paid off with Mads Pedersen sprinting for the stage win and earning a significant lead on his quest for the green jersey. The yellow jersey moved shoulders again, going to Torstein Traen, a Norwegian rider on Uno-X Mobility, with a lead of roughly 8 minutes on the GC group, echoing Afonso Eulalio’s time in the GC-lead during the Giro.
Stage 5 – Lannemezan to Pau
Stage 5 was a mostly flat stage, 158 km long with one categorized climb and 1422 m of climbing over the course to Pau. This profile offered the first obvious sprint stage of the Tour. Olav Kooij from Decathlon CMA CGM wins the sprint giving the team their first win and taking some pressure for success off the shoulders of Paul Seixas.
Stage 6 – First Real Mountains ft. Tourmalet
Stage 6 offered the first proper climbing test of this year’s tour. The stage was 186 km from Pau to Gavarnie-Gèdre and had 5 categorized climbs and over 4000 meters of climbing. The category 1 climb of Col d’Aspin peaked at 70 km from the finish, followed immediately by Col du Tourmalet, a 17km “beyond category” climb averaging 7 percent gradient. A long descent from the Tourmalet led into a final kicker – an 18km climb averaging 3 percent.
UAE controlled the break to limit the opportunities for GC teams to have a support rider ahead of the peloton. Isaac del Toro leads out Pogacar who attacks on the Tourmalet. Jonas Vingegaard is unable to follow and Pogacar crests over the peak of the Tourmalet with a 30 second lead on Vingegaard. Pogacar extends this lead in the descent and over the final climb winning the stage with nearly 3 minutes on Jonas Vingegaard.
Stage 7 – Pancake Flat in Wine Country
Stage 7 was a 175 km long stage with one mere climb. This flat stage from Hagetmau to Bourdeaux offered one of the few select sprint opportunities in this year’s Tour. Tim Merlier of Soudal Quick-Step wins the sprint to the finish line against the other key green jersey contenders like Biniam Girmay and Jasper Philipsen.
Stage 8 – Another W for the Fastest Man in the Bunch
Stage 8 was 180 km long and featured another flat sprint finish. As the Tour went from Périgaux to Bergerac on its way across France towards the Alps, the riders bade farewell to the one of the few proper flat stages of the Tour. Sprints tend to favor the rider with the most momentum, giving them an extra boost of confidence to clinch a win that is often decided by fractions of a second. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that Merlier won his second stage of this year’s tour, beating Philipsen and Girmay at the line once again.
Stage 9 – Breakaway: All Stars
This Tour de France has been particularly affected by climate change, and stage 9, from Malemort to Ussel, was one of the starkest examples with the stage being shortened due to the extreme heat. That being said, the stage was still 156km long and had 4 categorized climbs. The fight for the breakaway was fierce, and the break was held on a tight leash all day. The deciding break of the day was an all-star group including Matthieu van der Poel, Tom Pidcock, Tobias Halland Johannessen, and Alex Baudin. The group stuck together with a few hundred meters to go, but the uphill kick to the finish wasn’t steep enough to deter van der Poel from winning the stage for Team Alpecin-Premier Tech.
The Dish: Churros
While churros are often thought of in Mexican cuisine they are of Iberian origin. They felt like the perfect celebratory dish to kick off the Tour de France that began in Barcelona.
My venture into churro making was the byproduct of overconfidence and underpreparedness. Taste wise I think they turned out great! But looking at them you might not immediately recognize them as churros.
Churros are made of a choux pastry that you then fry and coat in sugar. I followed this recipe. In theory, they are a great vehicle for a dipping sauce (e.g. chocolate) although mine weren’t quite up to dunking standards.
My mistake was using the wrong tip size in my (homemade) piping bag. Since they expanded when they hit the oil, which I failed to account for, my churros were much bigger than normal. This had two consequences: the cinnamon sugar didn’t stick as well without the ridges and the texture was doughier in the middle. I personally didn’t mind this, but I will say churros are the size they are for a reason.
Overall, a delicious snack if you don’t mind frying. While frying can be time consuming, the ingredients list is pretty slim, I had everything on hand already (minus the piping bag.)
Thanks so much for reading!
A la prochaine!