Before and after the Tour de France, Tignes is often mentioned, a French commune located in the Alps in the Savoie department, known as a renowned ski resort in the Espace Killy ski area, together with Val d'Isère. At this time, several riders who will be seen in a few days at the Tour de France are in Tignes, including Jonas Vingegaard with his entire Visma-Lease a Bike team and Remco Evenepoel with his Soudal – Quick Step teammates.

Remco, starting from Tignes, conducted a reconnaissance of the Col de la Loze, together with Maximilian Schachmann and Valentin Paret-Peintre, tackling the challenging 26.3-kilometer climb at 6.5% with particularly steep sections and the finish line placed over 2,300 meters above sea level. Arriving at the top of the Col de la Loze, Remco shared his impressions of this climb. "It's a tough climb, also very irregular. I also believe it's the longest of the entire Tour: with the Col du Glandon and the Col de la Madeleine coming first, it will be a beautiful but difficult stage".

The eighteenth stage, from Vif to Col de la Loze, will be raced on July 24th, with 5,500 meters of total elevation gain over a distance of 171 kilometers. It will start with the Col du Glandon, a 21.7-kilometer climb with an average gradient of 5.1%, but with numerous double-digit sections. After a descent into the valley, they will immediately climb again, and this time the riders will face the Col de la Madeleine, slightly shorter but overall steeper: 19.2 kilometers long with an average gradient of 7.9%.

After a quick descent of about 30 kilometers, the route flattens for about 15 kilometers, but from Brides-les-Bains the gradient increases again. The Col de la Loze has some extremely steep sections: 5 km from the summit, the gradient is 11%, and just over 2 kilometers from the finish, the gradient is around 10%. In short, this will be one of the stages that could decide the fate of the Tour de France.

Evenepoel and his team were not the first to explore the Col de la Loze. The day before, Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert were also on that summit with some teammates, including Victor Campenaerts, Simon Yates, Sepp Kuss, Matteo Jorgenson, and Edoardo Affini.