The 2026 Lloyds Tour of Britain Women will climb towards its defining moment on the third of five days, when the peloton takes the zigzags of Saint Tudno’s Road to a summit finish on the Great Orme above Llandudno. The full route is built around that climb and the Welsh hills either side of it.
British Cycling has published the stage routes, confirming the parcours behind the host venues named in June. At 635.8 kilometres and 8,895 metres of climbing, it is the longest edition in the race’s history, British Cycling says, running through Cumbria and Lancashire, across north and mid Wales, and on to a finish in Warwickshire.
The race is part of the UCI Women’s WorldTour. Jonathan Day, Director of Events for British Cycling Ventures, said the course gave “a range of different rider types” the chance to challenge for the title.
Stage one
Stage one is the longest of the race. The riders open with 158.9 kilometres and 1,913 metres of climbing around Cockermouth on Wednesday 19 August — the town’s first time hosting the women’s race — heading up the west Cumbrian coast through Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport, where exposed roads could bring crosswinds off the Irish Sea into play.
A 700-metre cobbled sector at Silloth adds early texture before the route turns inland beyond Wigton and towards the outer edge of the Lake District. From there, the race enters a 26-kilometre finishing circuit around Clints Crags, taking in Watch Hill and Ruddings Hill before the first general classification leader is decided back in Cockermouth.
Stage two
Thursday’s stage two runs 110.5 kilometres from Clitheroe to Blackpool and front-loads its climbing. From the Ribble Valley, the route heads into the Forest of Bowland for Waddington Fell and the Nick o’ Pendle, the 1.9-kilometre ascent of Pendle Hill averaging 7.6%.
There are 1,392 metres of ascent in all, but once the early climbing is done the profile softens. The route runs west through Whalley, Longridge and Broughton, turns south at Singleton, passes Lytham St Annes, and drops towards a likely sprint finish on Blackpool promenade, alongside the resort’s Mirror Ball.
Stage three
Stage three is the shortest of the race at 104.7 kilometres, but with 1,927 metres of climbing it is the day on which the general classification should first take real shape.
Starting in Mold — another first Tour stage start — Friday’s route crosses the Clwydian Range, past the Iron Age hillforts of Penycloddiau and Moel-y-gaer, before running through Trefnant, Gwytherin and Llansannan. From there it turns north for the coast through Tal-y-bont and Caerhun, skirts Conwy, and circles the headland on Marine Drive before the final climb.
That finish is the point around which the route turns: Saint Tudno’s Road to the Great Orme summit, 2.5 kilometres at 6.1%, with pitches close to 15%. It is not a long climb in the Alpine sense, but it is exposed, irregular and visually unmistakable, the road folding back on itself above Llandudno Bay.
The men’s race last finished here in 2021, when Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe went clear together. This time the women take the climb’s zigzags to the line. It was the finish The British Continental pointed to when the host venues were named; the full route only sharpens that sense of stage three as the race’s hinge.
Stage four
Saturday’s stage four, from Llanidloes to Hay-on-Wye, carries the most climbing of the race: 2,484 metres over 138 kilometres. If the Great Orme is the set-piece finish, this is the harder day to control.
The route drops south to Rhayader and loops through the Elan Valley in the Cambrian Mountains for what the organisers rate as the stage’s toughest ascent — 5.3 kilometres at 5%, with a kilometre in the middle closer to 10%. Back through Rhayader, it heads east over the hills around Nantmel, Crossgates and Bleddfa to Knighton, where it crosses the River Teme and turns south through Norton, Gladestry and Painscastle to the finish in Hay-on-Wye.
It is the sort of stage that may not have the obvious summit-finish theatre of the previous day, but could be just as dangerous: long enough, hilly enough and late enough in the race for fatigue and team depth to matter.
Stage five
The race ends in Warwickshire. Sunday’s stage five starts and finishes in Royal Leamington Spa, which hosted closing stages of the women’s race in 2017 and 2018, won by Chloe Hosking and Sarah Roy.
At 123.8 kilometres and 1,386 metres of climbing, it is the flattest day, though not without sting. The route heads north past Kenilworth Castle, then follows the Fosse Way south, crossing the M40 through Wellesbourne and Shipston-on-Stour before the closing loop brings two late climbs: Sun Rising Hill, 900 metres at 10%, and Burton Dassett Hills Country Park, 700 metres at 9%.
Burton Dassett was a summit finish in last year’s men’s race. Here, it comes before the run back to Royal Leamington Spa, where the finish beside Jephson Gardens is the likeliest bunch sprint of the week. But if the overall remains close, bonus seconds and those late climbs could still leave room for one final shift in the general classification, as happened on the last stage in 2025.
The field is set. British Cycling last week confirmed a 19-team line-up that includes all four British Continental squads—DAS–Hutchinson, Handsling Alba, O’Shea Red Chilli Bikes and Smurfit Westrock—after a year of doubt over their eligibility for their only home WorldTour race.
The 2026 edition is the first in which the women’s race matches the men’s at five stages. Three of its host areas—Cumbria, Lancashire and Powys—are also in line to feature in the 2027 Tour de France Grand Départ.
