How many stages are in the Tour de France each year?

When the Tour de France first started, each year’s race had a varied number of stages. Since 1999, the Tour has maintained a standard of 21 stages per year.

The Tour de France took nearly a century to establish a standard around number of stages. Over most of the race’s history, there has been no standard for the number of stages in each year’s race.

In the inaugural edition of 1903, the route spanned over 1,500 miles in only six stages. The shortest stage in 1903, at 167 miles, covered more distance than the longest stage at the 2018 Tour de France.

By the end of the decade, the race had ballooned up to 14 stages. On either side of World War I 1910 and 1924, every edition of the Tour de France featured 15 stages. The 1925 race deviated from this norm, as race organizers put together a route with 18 stages.

Riders in 1926 encountered the race that remains the longest in Tour de France history in terms of miles covered. Over 17 stages, the race ran over 3,570 miles of roads throughout France. A year later, the race was more than 200 miles shorter even though there were 24 stages included in the route.

Completing a loop has usually been more significant than stage counts.

Between the mid-1920s and World War II, the number of stages fluctuated wildly from year to year. As different cities hosted the stage starts and finishes, distances between host cities determined the number of stages in a given Tour.

There was no real rhyme or reason as the race remained rooted to completing a full loop of the French territory. Transporting between stages had not yet been popularized. Each day, stages started in the same place they finished the previous day.

Eventually the Tour de France started visiting foreign countries. In addition, transport between stage starts and finishes became commonplace. That led to a relative standard in terms of the  number of stages. After World War II, the Tour more often than not featured 21 stages. Throughout the rest of the 20th century, though, deviations from that norm remained common.

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The last time there was more than 21 stages, though, was back in 1998. That year, 22 stages were organized for a race that would come to be defined by the Festina doping affair. Since that time, including for all of Lance Armstrong’s since-vacated victories, the Tour de France has consistently featured 21 stages in its second century of operation.

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