From a first-ever start in Bulgaria to the mountaintop finishes that will decide the overall, here’s what you need to know about the 21 stages of the season’s first Grand Tour.
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The first Grand Tour of the 2026 season gets underway on Friday in Bulgaria, which is playing host to the Grande Partenza of the Giro d’Italia for the first time ever. Three weeks later, on May 31, the pink jersey and the rest of the peloton will arrive in Rome, where the 109th Giro winner will be crowned.
Along the way, riders will tackle a wide variety of challenges, including plenty of uphill tests that will ultimately decide which of the favorites – Jonas Vingegaard? Giulio Pellizzari? Adam Yates? – is worthy of the pink jersey. All things considered, it’s a pretty climber-friendly Giro, although it’s not as hard as several other recent editions have been.
In fact, the 2026 Giro has the second-lowest total elevation gain of any of the last five editions:
Just the same, visits to the Blockhaus climb and the Dolomites will give the mountain goats plenty to look forward to. Meanwhile, there is one individual time trial on tap that should prove decisive in its own right. The Red Bull KM intermediate bonus returns for 2026. Where some races offer bonus seconds to riders on summits or at intermediate sprints, the Red Bull KM is essentially a hybrid of both, offering one spot per stage with a 6-4-2 second bonus for the first three riders over the line. Some days it’ll be a moot point as the break scoops up the bonus, but on others it may play a bigger role.
With only a few days left to the start of the Giro, it’s time to take a deeper dive into those stages and the others that will define the race. We will take a closer look at the contenders for the maglia rosa this week as well, so stay tuned for that. For now, read on for everything you need to know about all 21 stages of the 2026 Giro d’Italia …
Stage 1: Nessebar to Burgas – 147 km
Date: Friday, May 8, 2026
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Summary: The 2026 Giro opens with a likely sprint stage, which organizers have marked as two stars out of five for difficulty (we’ll include those ratings for each stage because they’re a bit more useful than trying to decide which days are “hilly” or “flat”). The Cat. 4 climbs are highly unlikely to create any separation, but there are some notable features on the route, including its setting on the Black Sea coast, where the wind will likely blow in from the east. That could make for some crosswinds throughout the day. The stage ends with a false flat to the line that could give a bit of an edge to the lighter sprinters.
Stage 2: Burgas to Veliko Tarnovo – 221 km
Date: Saturday, May 9, 2026
Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐
Summary: The punchier climbers could come to the fore on the second day in Bulgaria. Those two climbs near the midway point of the race will help whittle away at the peloton and then the Lyaskovets Monastery Pass at 6.8% for 3.9 could be a launching pad for the more enterprising stagehunters. This will also be one of many stages where the positioning of the Red Bull KM, just before the aforementioned climb, could see the overall contenders vying for bonus seconds.
Stage 3: Plovdiv to Sofia – 175 km
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