The Tour de France's top favourites are making final preparations for next month's race, alternating high-altitude training with reconnaissance of key Alpine route points.

Reigning champion Tadej Pogačar is taking part in a final training camp with UAE Team Emirates-XRG in Isola 2000, while his main rivals Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) are based further north, in the Tignes area.

Evenepoel, who needs to make up ground on Pogačar and Vingegaard after finishing fourth in the Critérium du Dauphiné, carried out a reconnaissance on the longest climb of the 2025 Tour: the Col de la Loze.

The climb, already tackled twice at the Tour (in 2020 with victory by Miguel Angel López and in 2023 when Pogačar collapsed losing the yellow jersey to Vingegaard), will also be decisive in 2025. With its 26.2 km at an average gradient of 6.5%, it represents the culmination point of the queen stage, which includes 171 km and 5,800 meters of altitude difference also including the Col du Glandon (21.7 km at 5.2%) and the Col de la Madeleine (19.1 km at 7.9%).

'It's really tough and bumpy. The climb is very, very long, the longest of this Tour,' Evenepoel said after climbing the 2,304-metre Loze with teammates Schachmann and Paret-Peintre. 'It's never easy to get here, and it'll be the first time you've climbed from Courchevel. I think it'll be a very demanding stage with the Glandon and the Madeleine. It won't be easy at all, but it'll be an extraordinary stage.'

The Visma-Lease A Bike team also reconnoitered the climb, with Vingegaard accompanied by Van Aert, Jorgenson, Campenaerts and other teammates.