Stage 3 of the 2026 Tour de France is under serious threat, with officials set to decide by the end of Sunday whether Mondays first mountain test can go ahead amid a major wildfire emergency in the Pyrenees-Orientales. The 195.9km stage is scheduled to start in Granollers, Spain, before crossing in...

Jonas Vingegaard insisted he could be satisfied with stage 2 of the 2026 Tour de France, even after Tadej Pogacar reduced his yellow jersey lead to just six seconds in Barcelona. Vingegaard finished fourth on the stage, on the same time as Isaac del Toro, Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel, so the Dane was...

The 2026 Tour de France classifications will shift across three weeks of racing, from the Grand Dpart in Barcelona on 4 July to the final stage in Paris on 26 July. Across time trials, sprint stages, breakaway opportunities and the high mountains, each day can alter the shape of the race for yellow...

Isaac del Toro made a daring late move in the final kilometre to take the second stage of the 2026 Tour de France on an uphill finish in Barcelona. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider chased down late-attacker Matthias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), cornering at high speed with 500 metres to go and unleashing his acceleration. His team-mate Tadej Pogaar attacked from behind and had the beating of yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), but appeared to all his young colleague to take an historic victory in a UAE Team Emirates-XRG 1-2. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) topped an impressive opening weekend by finishing third. Vingegaard remains in the yellow jersey of race leader, but Pogaar has closed the gap from twelve to six seconds, moving into second overall. Evenepoel now sits third, 15 seconds down. Del Toro claimed his first Tour de France stage win, and what's more, took Mexico's first win at the race in 36 years, since Ral Alcala claimed stage 7 in 1990.More to follow...

Tom Pidcock has never pretended the Tour de France is an easy race to carry mentally. Ahead of stage 2 of the 2026 edition, though, the Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team rider sounded far removed from the pressure that has followed him through previous Grand Tour starts. Speaking to TNT Sports before...

Fun to ride, easy to fold and heavenly on public transport - for which a few small negatives might be forgiven

My hands are shaking, breathing is heavy and blood has dripped all over the floor of my home office-turned-pain cave. While it might sound like a murder scene, Im approaching the end of an at-home lactate test, and this next pinprick will reveal whether its time to call it a day or ramp up the intensity another 15 watts. The 45-minute test hasnt been a stress-free experience thanks to the need to take my own blood samples and the odd contaminated reading. Despite this, its been less intensive than a run-of-the-mill functional threshold power (FTP) ramp test and will allegedly provide me with much more accurate training zones. But can a handheld lactate analyser bought online and a test run by someone with a single science GCSE (A, if youre wondering) really compete with a lab-grade assessment in terms of precision? And if Im basing my training zones on faulty data, could I end up further away from my performance goals? Before we get into that though, its worth exploring why Im willingly lancetting my finger on a Saturday morning in the first place. On the threshold Lactate testing is a common process at the top level of cycling. Getty Images Lactate testing is big business in professional cycling, where riders regularly have their blood lactate levels analysed during training to ensure theyre riding at the correct intensity. Blood lactate is an energy source, explains exercise physiologist Toby Helder. People have been speaking about it the wrong way for years as a bad thing, but its not necessarily a bad thing. "It essentially gets shuttled around the body, and, as youre going through the intensity levels, you can no longer break it down for energy, so then it starts circulating. The reason we're measuring it is because it correlates strongly with hydrogen ions and other factors, which is what we now think creates fatigue in the body. You can't really measure the hydrogen ions and all the other stuff as easily, so that's why we measure blood lactate. Another metric to track in addition to heart rate, power and RPE (rate of perceived exertion), lactate is able to show the tipping point of the bodys energy systems, from primarily fat to relying more on carbohydrates for anaerobic (without oxygen) energy production. These tipping points are called your lactate thresholds (LT1 and LT2), but because they dont rise linearly with intensity and are completely individual, theres no precise one-size-fits-all approach to calculating it without a test. Even then its a rough range, and can vary between five and 10 watts on different days anyway, according to Helder. Getting tested Things can hurt a little during a lactate test, but nothing like it does on a VO2 max test. Future Publishing Ltd Before I test my levels at home, I need a gold-standard baseline, so I head down to St Marys Universitys Sports and Health Services physiological profile lab for a lactate profile test. After my weight, resting heart rate and blood lactate are taken, I complete a step-test on a Wattbike, starting at an easy intensity before ramping up gradually by 15 watts at four-minute intervals. At the end of each step, Helder takes my rate of perceived exertion (RPE), heart rate and a blood sample from my middle finger, which is run through an analyser to find out my blood lactate reading (in mmol/L). Initially, the test feels like an easy spin, but as the intensity starts to creep towards my FTP, the legs begin to feel heavy. At this point in a VO2 max or FTP test, its time to grit your teeth and dig in, but on returning from the analyser, my blood lactate is now over 4 mmol/L and Helder is happy he has all the data he needs, so I'm able to call it quits before things get really difficult. After plugging my results into a piece of software over a post-test coffee, he is able to show me my curve, and plot my three training zones and the accompanying heart rate and power. There are different models of training zones. Generally, youve got three, which is the minimum, or there are five or eight. "The three is based on below lactate threshold one, between lactate threshold one and two, and then two and above that's essentially anaerobic. "As you progress through the power, you start to break down fats a little less easily, and then more carbs. It becomes a bit harder. Your first lactate threshold is essentially when it starts to have that initial rise and can no longer be sustained. Lactate two is trickier what we tend to say is its the second point at which it is unsustained, so you should shoot up again. My line starts at 1.25 mmol/L before reducing down this generally means you're starting to move through the motions, your metabolism is kicking in and you're buffering lactate before there are two shifts in the curves angle. Helders report suggests my LT1 is at 205 watts, while LT2 follows at 240. The former is the tipping point between easy and aerobic efforts, whereas the latter is the maximal lactate steady state (MLSS) when lactate clearance matches lactate production. This is what I should be able to hold for an hours time trial. This might sound similar to FTP.And thats because, in theory, it is. The much-touted metric can be tested at home with an all-out 20-minute effort or ramp test on a turbo trainer, and training zones can then be set by taking 95% of average power. The reality though is that FTP and LT2 dont always align FTP is an estimated proxy, whereas LT2 is the exact physiological point. There is definitely added accuracy, says Helder. FTP is one number and it's also estimated. Other than its sub-maximal nature, this is where the real benefits of a lactate test start to emerge. My most up-to-date FTP before undertaking my lab test was 270 30 watts higher than my actual MLSS. Without precise blood lactate measurements, you can easily find yourself training too hard a shortcut to burnout. Joseph Branston Applied to training zones using the much-employed calculation devised by Dr Andrew Coggan, it could mean Ive been training harder than I should have been at high-intensity efforts. Conversely, if you use my actual MLSS in an FTP power training zone calculator, my top of zone 2 work (the mythical training intensity favoured by Tadej Pogaar and where you get physiological improvements such as better endurance and fat metabolism) might not have been hard enough. Thanks to the lactate test revealing my LT1 and LT2, I now have a much more personalised understanding of my fitness, enabling an individualised training approach, rather than basing future workouts around a one-size-fits-all calculation that could lead to under or over-training. But will my at-home test reveal similar findings? Or throw out data thats ultimately inaccurate? Solo sampling Charlie secured this Lactate Plus meter (with 50 test strips) for 358. Charlie Allenby After weeks of scouring AliExpress, I decide to swerve the too-good-to-be-true deals and invest more than 350 in a Lactate Plus meter (a lactate analyser is for life, not just for this article I tell myself as I input my card details). Now ready to recreate my lab test, I create a workout in Zwift, get my lancets and alcohol wipes and lay out all the testing strips Ill need (and a few spare) to get over 4 mmol/L. At the end of my first step, its clear this isnt going to be as seamless as in the lab. Stopping to take my first reading (clean finger with alcohol wipe, lancet, wipe first blood with paper towel, take sample, wait 13 seconds for result), I get an error code for a contaminated sample, meaning I have to repeat the above steps again. The second reading gets the green light, but Im starting to worry that I havent put enough test strips out (which, at more than 1.50 a pop, means things could start getting expensive, too). The next few steps continue without a hitch and I start to find a rhythm. My numbers seem to have shifted slightly since the lab test, too. In fact, at one point after they've started to rise, there's a marginal decrease. But as the intensity ramps up slowly, my breathing begins to become more laboured and its hard to keep my hand steady when taking a sample. Reaching the point where I stopped in the lab, disaster strikes again with another contaminated test. Scrambling around for an additional lancet and test strip, theres a prolonged delay in taking my second reading. When it finally comes through, I still havent gone above 4 mmol/L, so I ramp things up one more time. Fortunately, its just one more step before I can wrap things up, and I fire my at-home readings over to Helder to get his thoughts. The curve looks very similar between the two tests, with lactate being buffered at a very similar point, if anything, slightly better in the second test (curve going down rather than to the right), he says. He adds that the delayed samples could have affected the results, while the marginal decrease also stood out. It would be unusual for blood lactate to drop, even slightly, during an incremental lactate test once values are beginning to rise. Read between the lines On the surface, the two tests and their curves look fairly similar (especially if you remove the anomaly of a decrease), showing that an at-home test can provide similar results to one conducted in a lab. The big difference, though, is the analysis, and understanding the data well enough to say definitively where LT1 and LT2 occur on the curve, and therefore how to set training zones. If you're a sports scientist, you know where the lactate thresholds are you've seen a lot of data, says Helder. Recreational athletes haven't seen that, so they have no advice around where those thresholds are. And this is where the potential dangers arise. Set your thresholds too high and it could result in overreaching. I don't think many recreational riders do the correct amount of hours [in the right threshold zones], but if you're trying to push 10-plus hours in the wrong zone, you're going to create cumulative fatigue and overuse injuries in different areas. Helder adds that the opposite is also true: If you're trying to push your lactate threshold higher, you need to be working a bit above it you need to stimulate the mitochondria, enzymes and everything to be buffering what's coming out to make sure your systems are being used efficiently. "But if it's wrong and you're not stimulating it much, you could be getting aerobically fit at low intensities, and then as soon as someone throws a high wattage, you haven't been used to it. At-home lactate tests have their place, but require guidance and advice to truly maximise their ability to personalise your training. So, while a useful tool to check youre riding at the correct intensities, for lactate threshold setting and training zone recommendations, its best to leave it to the experts.

Todays stage finish is on the Montjuc hill in Barcelona. Like yesterdays stage, like the Volta a Catalunyas final day and like plenty more. If you wanted to find the one location that has hosted the greatest variety of top level pro races it has to be here.Todays stage start in Tarragona deserves a mention. It is a beach resort but has plenty of charm with a history that dates back thousands of years. The giant Roman amphitheatre is part of this. It also has a port that ships many SEAT cars assembled on the edge of Barcelona. So far, so trivial but its also been the host of the Volta a Tarragona, a stage race that dates back to 1908, older than the Volta a Catalunya which began in 1911 making it the fourth oldest surviving stage race after the Tour, Giro and Tour of Belgium.The Volta a Tarragona became the junior event to the Volta a Catalunya as it was later reserved for amateurs. Past winners include Jose Manuel Fuente, Pedro Delgado and Denis Menchov. But for a long time the amateur version of the Volta a Catalunya was also the Volta a Lleida, a different race but held on the same roads and among some shared characteristics also won by Menchov once.Montjuic is a hill in Barcelona with parks, museums and also several Olympic facilities from the 1992 Olympic games. It was here that the road race finished in 1992, the last games when the road races were reserved for amateurs.Montjuic is the used for the final stage of the Volta a Catalunya. This World Tour race gets to finish in the regional capital and uses a finishing circuit that often supplies good racing and can see the overall classification overturned thanks to the hilly course.The Vuelta a Espaa has visited too, the last time was 2023 on the second stage which was won by Andreas Kron in particular circumstances, the wet conditions saw the race neutralised for GC with 9km to go as the circuit is tricky with bends that can be awkward given the speeds involved coming off the hill. So not everyone raced the stage to the end.Embed from Getty ImagesMontjuic also used to have its own race, theEscalada a Montjuic. The first edition was won by Federico Bahamontes when it was held in March. It then became a late season race with a format of laps of Montjuic in the morning and then a brief time trial in the afternoon. Eddy Merckx won in 1972. As part of the UCI calendar it was for a while the season-ending event but the final edition was run in 2007.The Tour de France visits this weekend but its not the first time. In 1957 Jacques Anquetil won a time trial stage around Montjuic, hed won two road stages by then but this was his first TT triumph. For the anecdote hed end his career at the Escalada a Montjuic.The world championships have happened here twice too, 1973 and 1984 with pro mens wins for Felice Gimondi and Claude Criquielion.Some places have the triple claim of having a home grand tour, the worlds and a local race. Think of Varese in Italy with the Giro, Worlds and Tre Valle Varesine. Gap in France has had the Tour, Worlds and both the Dauphin and Paris-Nice.Montjuic tops this: Tour, Vuelta, Volta, the Olympics, the Worlds and long home to a dedicated local race. Is there any other place that has hosted as many high level mens races?The post Postcard from Montjuc first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Good morning and welcome to the liveblog of the Tour de France! Stage 2 takes the peloton to the ever-spectacular, tough and explosive climb of the Montjuic. Thousands of cycling fans are expected to line the roads today, creating a stunning atmosphere for the world's biggest bike race. Stay with us...

With extreme temperatures gripping the south of France, the third stage of the 2026 Tour de France is in danger of cancellation due to wildfires ripping through the Easter Pyrenees region.Speaking to AFP on Sunday, Pierre Regnault de la Mothe, a senior official within the Pyrnes-Orientales department in which the third stage is set to finish, said that a decision will be taken by the end of the day concerning the running of stage 3.Forest fires are currently raging around 70 kilometres from the stage 3 finish in Les Angles. Approximately 1,500 hectares have been affected and 700 firefighters mobilised to tackle the blaze. Several roads around the route of stage 3 are also closed. "The fire has flared up again. All resources are being mobilised to contain it," added Regnault de la Mothe.Stage 3 is scheduled to begin in Granollers taking riders over the Pyrenees mountain range on a 196km stage to Les Angles.With the heat already impacting on the race during the opening team time trial, riders were seen taking measures to control their core body temperature as the race began in Barcelona. Temperatures in the region are set to top 40 degrees celsius on Monday, and with the region experiencing extreme heat throughout May and June, race organisers have been conscious of possible changes in line with the UCI's extreme weather protocols. The organisers have been on standby to adjust the route day-by-day depending on how things unfold.According to a French Interior Ministry document viewed by Reuters, regional officials will hold sway over the cancellation of stages in the coming weeks.The document stated: "In exceptional circumstances, and in consultation with the organiser and all relevant parties, you may decide to cancel a stage if health or operational conditions no longer allow for the simultaneous safeguarding of spectators and staff, and the continued provision of emergency services to the public.