Rubèn Peris remembers the first time his father took him into the heart of Barcelona's Montjuïc barrio to witness the world's best cyclists racing up to the castle on the hill. "My father would take me to watch the Escalada a Montjuïc, and I remember seeing Merckx, Bahamontes, Gimondi all winning," Peris says. Cycling legends, all of them, and the first bike racing royals to compete in the Montjuïc hill-climb event that ran from 1964 to 2007. The winner had to battle double digit gradients to reach the top of the summit. "I have so many great memories from when I was young watching cycling there," Peris gushes, smiling fondly. "Montjuïc really means a lot to me. It's not just part of my cycling life, but my entire life. I have a personal affection for the place."
Decades later, Peris became the man responsible for continuing Montjuïc's historic sporting legacy. As director of the Volta a Catalonia since 2006, he has ensured that even though the beloved Escalada hasn't been held for almost two decades – and the days of motor racing on the same roads are also a distant memory – the final day of Catalonia's spring stage race is centred on a gruelling, rip-roaring and unpredictable circuit around Montjuïc. Tadej Pogačar has won the famed stage seven. So too have Simon Yates, Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič. Escalada winners also include Raymond Poulidor, Joop Zoetemelk and Tony Rominger. The list of Montjuïc winners reads like a Who's Who of cycling elite.
Along with Paris' Champs-Élysées, Montjuïc can claim to be one of only a very few urban roads anywhere in the world where multiple icons of the sport, spanning across multiple generations, have raced, leaving an indelible mark on the watching spectators – such as Peris. "I've watched two World Championships on Montjuïc," Peris says. "The first one [in 1973, Felice] Gimondi won ahead of Freddy Maertens." He pauses, almost certainly for effect. "And Merckx was fourth!" he adds, still astonished, more than 50 years on. In 1984, cycling's rainbow jersey was once again decided in Barcelona, Belgian Claude Criquielion doing what his compatriot Merckx did six times in the Escalada but couldn't do in the Worlds – conquer Montjuïc's punishing slopes. "These are all cycling moments that I remember so well," Peris says. "First memories with my father, and then later watching with my wife. Cycling is really rooted in Barcelona, and all the biggest races in the world have come here and used Montjuïc."
This summer, the Tour de France returns to cycling's most venerated circuit, with stages one and two of the Grand Départ finishing outside the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, just a few pedal strokes from Montjuïc's 17th century castell. The last time the Tour visited Montjuïc was in 2009. It knew then it had to come back. "Montjuïc gives you everything," enthused Tour director Christian Prudhomme to Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia. Comparing it to Paris's Montmartre circuit that the Tour has copied from the 2024 Olympics, Prudhomme said: "Montmartre is like a mini-Montjuïc." Shorthand for: Montjuïc is not just older and more historic, but more prestigious. Simply, better. The best circuit in cycling.
Conflict and competition
El Castell de Montjuïc – or Château de Montjuïc, as it will be Frenchified for the Tour – was built as a military fortress in the 17th century, overlooking the bustling port city of Barcelona that is hemmed in by the forested Serra de Collserola to the west and the turquoise blue Mediterranean sea to the east. On the clearest of days, then as is now, one can spot the Pyrenees on the horizon. On the rarest of days – as infrequent as a blue moon – the island of Mallorca, another destination steeped in cycling history, is also visible from Montjuïc. You can see why the castle was built to guard Barcelona – it's an unrivalled 360 degree vantage point.
In its first few years of existence, the castle changed owners more regularly than the yellow jersey. It was constructed in just 30 days in 1640 during the Reapers' War, a conflict marked by Catalonia becoming a republic under the protection of France – but only for six short days. The region became a French protectorate meaning that the King of France ruled over Barcelona, yet in 1652 Spain retook Catalonia. More bloody flights ensued in the castle's grounds in the early 18th century, but when Napoleon's French army seized the castle a century later, they did so without a single shot being fired. Spain again reclaimed the territory in 1814, and for the next century and a bit the castle and surrounding area was largely known for housing a prison and a death centre.
Most dramatically, in 1940, a year after the Spanish Civil War ended with dictator General Franco taking charge of the country, the president of the Catalonian government, Lluís Companys, was executed inside the castle. The nearby 1992 Olympic Stadium, where stages one and two of the 2026 Tour will finish, is named in Companys' memory. Now the castle is owned and run by Barcelona City Council, and instead of being known as the site of blood-stained battles, Montjuïc is now an international peace centre.
What wasn't so peaceful was wheel sports' first embrace of Montjuïc and the roads that lead up to its various lookouts. Motorsport began hosting races around the neighbourhood in 1908, and it became so well-loved – as well as technically challenging – that Formula One staged four races from 1969 to 1975. It was loud, noisy, thrilling. But again, tragedy hit, F1 never returning after a driver veered off the course in the 1975 race and killed four spectators.
Fortunately Montjuïc's relationship with cycling is far more joyous – as Peris and Prudhomme have pointed out. First used in the 1933 Volta a Catalonia, the regional race kept on returning every year, and the Vuelta a España eventually followed suit. Ditto the Tour, which headed to Barcelona in 1957 – the first time it had visited Spain – for a 9.8km time trial up to the castle, won by Jacques Anquetil. Eight years later, Poulidor won a near-identical stage. The Tour, then still in its relative infancy of exploring beyond its home nation's borders, was enamoured by Montjuïc's charm, majesty and complexity. "The history of the Montjuïc circuit is a history of cycling," Peris says, correctly.
Holy orders
Approaching what is essentially an isolated raised mound of land to the immediate south of the very centre of Barcelona, the 2026 Tour de France peloton will pass three of Antoni Gaudi's world famous creations and landmarks en-route to Montjuïc. The first is the Sagrada Familia, which was finally completed in February 2026 and was officially opened by Pope Leo on June 10 to mark the 100th year anniversary of Gaudi's death. A day earlier, at the Olympic Stadium (or the finish line of the Tour, as we prefer to think of it) the Pope spoke to tens of thousands of worshippers. Montjuïc is so revered it gets the papal treatment.
After speeding past Sagrada Familia, the race will hurtle alongside the fountain of Montjuïc, which at night turns into a magnificent light and sound show. It's set against the Palau Nacional, whose domes are inspired by St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City. From there, onto the Montjuïc circuit, the draw is the road itself, which points skywards towards the castle at an average gradient of 9.3% for 1.6km. For 600m, the ramps are sustained at 13% – so steep, so leg-sapping that most tourists take a gondola. The riders don't have that option. Bike races are won here, legends are made.
(Photo: Szymon Gruchalski/Getty)
Samuel Sánchez, the 2008 Olympic champion, took his first ever professional win at the 2004 Escalada, defending his title a year later. "Montjuïc is special for me because it was where I achieved my first pro victory, but the place itself is particularly special because it's where the Olympics were," Sánchez says. "I was 14 watching Barcelona 1992, and racing around Montjuïc always brought back all of those beautiful memories as a kid."
To win in a place that is steeped in sporting folklore hits harder. It means more. "That I could win twice in Barcelona, in one of Europe's biggest cities, by the castle on top of Montjuïc, was beautiful and prestigious," Sánchez continues. "You get to the top of Montjuïc after such a hard climb, after going a tope" – full gas – "and you can barely breathe. But then you look around you and the whole area is spectacular, marvellous, and there are so many people."
Dan Martin agrees. Ireland's last Monument winner, he raced the Volta a Catalonia 12 times, winning the GC on Montjuïc in 2013. "It's such an iconic place to have a bike race," he enthuses. "And the best thing is they're great racing roads. I used to enjoy slingshotting from behind in the last lap coming off the fast downhill. I would get caught in the last kilometre but I almost made it to the finish a couple of times. It's a really intense circuit but it's fun and there's always a great atmosphere."
As director of the Volta, Peris has overseen some thrilling final day racing. In just the last few years alone, especially when the aforementioned Roglič has been involved, the GC has been settled around Montjuïc. "It's a really hard circuit," Peris grins, like a man who's proud of the suffering he inflicts on his race's participants. "The descent is really technical, but they come down it rapidísimo and then immediately afterwards they're climbing again. Lots of riders find it really difficult to position themselves. It's not a circuit that you can take easily. The truth is it's hard – really hard." The byproduct of that is that it makes for great entertainment. "The racing is always spectacular and very exciting for the public," Peris smiles.
Eyes on the prize
The modern peloton's first chance to add their name to the roll call of Montjuïc's victors is the Tour's stage one 19km team time trial that starts by the coast and then finishes by the stadium. In a change to convention, riders can jump clear of their teammates in the final stretch to receive individual times, immediately shaping the GC on day one. "It's going to be a leadout for each team's lead rider," Martin predicts. "You've got to say Pogačar is the favourite."
(Photo: Szymon Gruchalski/Getty)
Day two, which starts further south in Tarragona before finishing with three laps in Barcelona, doesn't exactly trace the Volta's Montjuïc loop, but the highlights – and challenges – are all the same around the 12.2km circuit. "There'll be no break for the riders with the repetitive nature of efforts causing splits," Martin says. "It's super technical for stage two of the Tour de France and there is going to be a big fight for position as the roads get narrow."
Sánchez speaks of the peloton's enduring respect for the circuit's demands. "Riders chat about it because everyone's so nervous," the Spaniard says. "You have to be really well positioned as it's such a complicated circuit."
In 2009, sprinter Thor Hushovd prevailed, but that was stage six, the GC already had an established order of sorts and there were far fewer jack-in-the-box characters impatient to make their mark. There's no way the climbers and the GC cohort will let a rider like Hushovd win this time. "It's stage two, everyone will be fresh, and it will be interesting to see the gaps," Martin says. "The atmosphere on the last climb is going to be insane and it's going to be one helluva event on race day."
Local fans will take up position early, armed with their baguettes, fuet – dry-cured Catalan sausage – and plenty of cheese. Xuixos, deep-fried, sugar-coated pastry stuffed with crema catalana, will be the sweet treat of choice. For the tens of thousands of foreign roadside spectators – many of whom will be holidaying in Barcelona and just happen to stumble upon the Tour – it'll be tapas, sangria, and Estrella Damm. For everyone, whether they're specifically there for the Tour or not, it will be a date with history, another chapter in Montjuïc's long and storied chronicles.
"It's such a special circuit that you have to live it and see it for yourself," Peris says. He's biased, of course, but he's not wrong. "With the Tour in town, it's going to be a festival. A win-win for everyone: for Barcelona to host the Tour, and for the Tour to visit Montjuïc."
Prudhomme, the man who ultimately oversees cycling's greatest spectacle, is in no doubt what awaits. "Myself and Thierry Gouvenou [the Tour's course designer] drove the final of the second stage with the Castle of Montjuïc climb [in March] and he said to me: 'It's going to be even better than I expected because it has everything'. What I can promise you is that champions will win on Montjuïc on the Saturday and Sunday. It will be absolutely wonderful."
