Cycling in Yorkshire & Beyond
Cycling in Yorkshire & Beyond
Stage 21 of the Tour de France 2025 is a 132.3km flat stage from Mantes-la-Ville to Paris for the traditional final day sprint on the Champs-Elysées.
It's the 50th anniversary of the first Champs-Elysées finish - 1975, when Walter Godefroot won and Bernard Thévenet was the overall Tour winner.
2025 will be a bit different from other editions, though. Inspired by the big and enthusiastic crowds for the road races at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Stage 21 will include three climbs at Montmartre to the Sacré-Coeur church.
After Circuit 1 - three times up and down the Champs-Elysées, including the intermediate sprint - the race starts Circuit 2. This involves laps of the Champs-Elysées and trips to Montmartre to do climbs of the Butte Montmartre. There are three laps of Circuit 2 before a sprint to the finish line part-way up the Avenue.
Anything that jazzes up what is often a dull final day is welcome. The pure sprinters might not be happy, as there is a risk of them being dropped on the way up to Montmartre. The Classics riders could be the ones to benefit.
If the General Classification is very close, I suppose there is a small chance of changes on the last day - although you would think that whichever rider has been fastest over the Pyrenees and the Alps will be able to manage a little ramp in the capital city.
This is the race report for Stage 21 Tour de France 2025.
These are video highlights of Stage 21.
Race Details | Poll | Map & Profile | Timings | Videos | Food & Drink | Route Notes | Favourites
| Date | Sunday 27th July 2025 |
|---|---|
| Stage classification | Flat |
| Distance | 132.3km |
| Intermediate sprint | Haut des Champs-Elysées, 3rd lap |
| Climbs | Côte de Bazemont (Cat. 4) Côte du Pavé des Gardes (Cat. 4) Côte de la Butte Montmartre (Cat. 4) (3 times) |
| Total climbing | 1,100m |
Vote for one of the main contenders to win Stage 21.
This is a map of the route of Stage 21, Tour de France 2025.
This is a zoom-able map of Stage 21 Tour de France 2025.
This is the profile of Stage 21 Tour de France 2025.
| Caravan | Fast Schedule | Slow Schedule | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start Time (départ fictif) | 1410 |
1610 |
1610 |
| Start Time (départ réel) | 1425 |
1625 |
1625 |
| Intermediate Sprint | 1622 |
1811 |
1822 |
| Côte de la Butte Montmartre Climb (1st time) | 1644 |
1831 |
1844 |
| Côte de la Butte Montmartre Climb (3rd time) | 1736 |
1918 |
1936 |
| Finish Line (132.3km) | 1745 |
1926 |
1945 |
This is a video of the route of Stage 21 Tour de France 2025.
This is footage of the first Champs-Elysées Tour de France finish in 1975.
In considering what food and drink should accompany Stage 21, let's
start with breakfast. The baguette is based on Viennese
bread, adopted in Paris in the 1800s. Similarly, the croissant
is a Viennese pastry made in Austrian bakeries that opened in Paris
in the 1830s.
Cheeses from the Parisian region are mainly bries, for example from Meaux or Melun.
The Opéra is a cake created by a Parisian pastry chef in 1955. It has layers of sponge and coffee-flavoured cream and ganache, and is topped with chocolate. The chef's wife thought it looked a bit like the stage of the Opéra Garnier in Paris, hence its name.
Macarons are also associated with Paris. Honey is made in Paris by bees in hives on roofs - for example on the roof of the Musée d'Orsay.
There's a thriving beer-making scene in Paris.
Since it's the last day of the 2025 Tour de France, champagne is in order - albeit the riders will probably settle for pizza and beer.
The stage starts in Mantes-la-Ville (départ fictif).
Stage 21 starts in Mantes-la-Ville, which is next to Mantes-la-Jolie - on the river Seine at its confluence with the Vaucouleurs.
It's in the Yvelines département, and the A13 Autoroute to Normandy passes through it. About a third of the population is Muslim.
Various companies made saxophones in Mantes, and there are still two wind instrument manufacturers - Henri Selmer and Buffet Crampon.
In the neutralised section, the peloton crosses the river Seine to Limay, then takes the D146 to Porcheville. The départ réel is just after Porcheville.
The riders cross back over the river and go through Epône and Nézel, heading for the first climb.
The first climb is the Côte de Bazemont, after Aulnay-sur-Mauldre.
It is 1.7km at an average 7%, to a height of 160m.
KOM competition: 1 point for 1st place.
The route continues via Les Alluets-le-Roi and Crespières to Chavenay. Then it's on through Fontenay-le-Fleury and Saint-Cyr-l'Ecole to Versailles, riding through the grounds and past the palace of Versailles.
The Palais de Versailles is much too big. It was built by a king with an oversized ego and it is furnished and decorated in horrendous taste.
It's far too busy, and if you visit you'll spend all your time either queuing up or jostling with thousands of other people on the way round part of the house. There is a distinct smell of stale pee in most of the rooms.
Don't let me put you off visiting the gardens, though. You can hire a rowing boat or a bike, or you can bring your own bike and ride round. The sorbet ice creams are very nice too. Finally, on certain days the original fountains play - although that also generates an odour.
Versailles started off as Louis XIII's hunting lodge.
Louis XIV was inspired to create a palace at Versailles by a visit to finance minister Nicolas Fouquet's residence at Vaux-le-Vicomte. The King accused Fouquet of corruption and had him arrested, then got to work turning Versailles into a huge palace between 1661 and 1715. He used Fouquet's team of Le Vau (architect), Le Nôtre (landscape gardener) and Le Brun (painter).
Louis wanted his court and nobles to live at Versailles, so he could keep an eye on them and prevent any plotting. That's why it had to be so big.
Louis XVI was at Versailles when the French Revolution started. He was marched back to Paris and forced to live in the city, initially in the Tuileries palace, instead of out in the countryside.
Napoléon Bonaparte began the process of turning Versailles into a museum, and under Louis-Philippe in the 1830s it was designated as a Museum of the History of France.
The Treaty of Versailles that formally ended hostilities in World War I was signed in the Hall of Mirrors.
These days, other than being a giant tourist attraction, foreign heads of state are sometimes received at Versailles.
From Versailles, the route continues east on the D10 then D56/D53 to Chaville.
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After Chaville, the D181 is called la Route du Pavé des Gardes and it heads up into Meudon Forest.
This is the Côte du Pavé des Gardes climb and it's 700m at an average gradient of 9.7%. The top is at 180m above sea level.
KOM competition: 1 point for 1st place.
Unless the King of the Mountains competition is unusually close after all the real climbs on the other stages, the Côte du Pavé des Gardes is unlikley to be significant.
Next on the race route is Meudon, where a branch of the Paris Observatory was founded in the ruins of the old Château de Meudon.
The race passes the Parc de l'Ile Saint-Germain and the Parc Omnisport Suzanne Lenglen.
It makes its way along the left bank of the river Seine on Quai André Citroën and Quai de Grenelle towards the Eiffel Tower. I see that the road at the Eiffel Tower itself is now named after that old rogue Jacques Chirac.
The race continues along the Quai d'Orsay until it reaches the Pont de la Concorde. Here it crosses the river to Place de la Concorde.
Stage 21 continues between the Seine and the Jardin des Tuileries, going past the Louvre before turning left on the Rue de l'Amiral de Coligny. It goes left again, into the Cour Carrée of the Louvre, past the glass pyramid, and out onto Rue de Rivoli.
In recent years, even more than the rest of Paris, Rue du Rivoli has been transformed by Mayor Anne Hidalgo into a utility cycling paradise.
Here Stage 21 joins Circuit 1.
Circuit 1 is three laps up and down the Champs-Elysées, turning around the Arc de Triomphe at the top - the normal route for a final stage of the Tour de France.
The intermediate sprint is on the Champs-Elysées by the junction with Rue Lincoln. It is just after the third time the peloton crosses the finish line and comes with 75.9km raced.
Green jersey competition: from 20 points for 1st place down to 1 point for 15th place.
The Champs-Elysées is the most famous street in Paris.
It runs for 1.2 miles from place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe at Charles de Gaulle Etoile.
The lower part of the Champs-Elysées was originally laid out by André le Nôtre as an extension of Tuileries gardens in 1667.
The street was extended from Rond-Point up to Etoile under Napoléon Bonaparte. The Arc de Triomphe was commissioned by Bonaparte but not completed until after his fall from power in 1815. The Champs-Elysées was remodelled under Emporer Napoléon III from 1854.
The Bastille Day parade takes place here every year.
There are eight traffic lanes on the Champs-Elysées, and it is very polluted. In 2021 Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans to cut space for motor vehicles by 50%, create 'tree tunnels' to improve air quality, and to give more space to pedestrians.
The work was postponed until after the 2024 Olympic Games, and
won't be completed until 2030.
The riders then take on Circuit 2.
Circuit 2 involves a lap of the Champs-Elysées, then striking out from Place de la Concorde towards Montmartre, notably going up Rue Lepic to the Butte Montmartre, and past the Sacré Coeur Cathedral.
A fairly late decision has been made to include a climb at Montmartre to the Sacré-Coeur Cathedral in the Stage 21 parcours.
This route change is inspired by the road races at the 2024 Paris Olympics, when enthusiastic crowds of half a million people lined that part of the route, cheering on the competitors.
The race organisers say, 'To mark the 50th anniversary of the first finish on the Champs-Elysées, and one year after the excitement and cheers of the Paris 2024 Olympic road race, the peloton will return to the capital on a route that passes through the heights of Montmartre'.
The Category 4 Côte de la Butte Montmartre, which is 1.1km at 5.9%.
KOM competition: 1 point for 1st place each time.
There are three laps of Circuit 2, so that means the fourth, fifth and sixth laps of the Champs-Elysées, followed each time by a climb of the Butte Montmartre.
Stage 21 finishes on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.
The riders come back from the third climb of the Butte Montmartre and reach the Champs-Elysées. They go part-way up the Avenue in a sprint to the finish line.
Green jersey competition at the finish line: from 50 points for 1st place down to 2 points for 15th place.
Time bonuses at the finish line:
In past years (other than 2024 in Nice), Stage 21 has been one for pure sprinters. For example, two of them battled it out in 2023 - Jasper Philipsen and Jordi Meeus.
This year, anyone who wants to win in Paris will have to stay near the front on the three climbs to the Butte Montmartre.
Wout van Aert is a rider who can do short punchy climbs and finish fast, and he is therefore a candidate for victory. His rival Mathieu van der Poel would have been too, but he dropped out of the Tour on the second rest day with pneumonia.
Who do you think will win Stage 21 of the 2025 Tour de France?
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