FAQ - Tour de France finish line on Champs Elysees

My husband and I had a bit of disagreement before and during our trip - we knew that the Tour finishes on a circuit course on the Champs Elysees in Paris, but weren't sure where exactly the finish line was located. Ed recalled seeing previous podium shots on TV with the Arc de Triomphe in the background and took that to mean that it was located quite close to the Arc, but I wasn't so sure. I'd tried to find more information about the finish on the internet, but couldn't find any sort of map (the official TdF website only had the overall stage map, not anything specific about the finish).

So, on the final Sunday morning of the Tour in July this year, we were up early to scout out where everything was. In the two previous days we could see where they were setting up VIP seating (usually photos of the Obelisk don't include grandstands!) Our hotel was fairly close to the Arc, and we took some photos with our bikes on the Champs Elysees in the closed section between the race course turnaround and the traffic circle at the Arc itself. We'd wanted to try to ride on the course, but couldn't find anywhere to get onto the course as it was very well barricaded - it seemed if you could get on the course, the police didn't really care if you were riding (this was at 9am, long before the caravan or the racers would be coming along) ... but there was really no opening we could see to get onto the actual course.



So, instead we rode along the sidewalk of the Champs until we got close to the park areas where all the VIP seating started and access became a lot more limited. As it turned out, the finish line was where all the grandstands were (and therefore, where the general public without grandstand tickets couldn't get to or see all that well). The closest non-grandstand places to the finish line were already crowded by early in the morning. We took our bikes back to the hotel, and came back to a spot near the intermediate sprint line (right against the barriers) by about 11 am and waited.

That day's L'Equipe newspaper was the most helpful in terms of the actual course route for the circuit finish, so I kept the map and scanned it just in case it can be helpful to anyone else.