3 Grand Tours known, so at Visma | Lease a Bike they sit down to make a good plan

Wednesday evening, with the presentation of the Vuelta a Espana course, the final grand tour of 2026 also became clear. At Visma | Lease a Bike, Movistar and all the other teams can now definitively start planning for the three-week stage races in the coming cycling year and the balance sheet was drawn up accordingly.

Next year's Tour of Spain begins in Monaco and will finish in Granada, after the Canary Islands decided not to welcome the round's finale due to the Israel issue.

“La Vuelta 26 will continue to maintain the international character of the event”, general director Javier Guillén said. “It will be an edition of La Vuelta with a very Mediterranean feel, from its start to the final stage in Andalusia. Monaco will mark a prestigious start to an edition that will visit historic cities, mountain passes that are part of our history and unprecedented climbs, before ending in a unique venue such as the Alhambra, the red fortress of Granada.”

Route architect Fernando Escartin added: “It’s a very tough route! The mountains will play a starring role in one of the most difficult editions in the history of La Vuelta. Andorra will set the tone at the start of the race with a short but very tough stage, before tackling climbs such as Valdelinares, Aitana, Calar Alto, La Pandera, Penas Blancas and the unprecedented Collado del Alguacil on a final day of mountain racing that promises to be extremely tough. There will also be several medium mountain stages that are sure to provide us with a great spectacle.”

Grischa Niermann, Head of Racing at Visma | Lease a Bike, said: “It looks like a hard but well balanced parcours. It’s a normal Vuelta in the sense that there are a lot hard mountains, but we already know many of them. To win it, you also need to be strong against the clock, as there are more than 40 kilometers of time trialing. I think the most unusual thing is that there are two stages with more than 5,000 meters of climbing spread out over the entire stage, which is not very common in the Vuelta,” Grischa Niermann, Head of Racing, said after the presentation.

“Other than that, I see a lot of opportunities for fast riders who can also survive some climbs. There are not many completely flat stages. The heat will likely play a role next year too, with the entire race taking place in the South. We will now sit down and make a good plan.”