Graphic: from Monaco to Paris, the 2009 route

Lance Armstrong has yet to confirm that he will race in next year's Tour de France, but the seven-times champion, whose comeback begins in January, may be tempted by a quirky route that climaxes with a set-piece finale on Mont Ventoux on the penultimate day of the race.

Armstrong, like many champions before him, has never got on with the “Giant of Provence”, but the steep and windswept hairpins that lead to the vertiginous summit would be the perfect theatre for a second remarkable comeback to racing. “Nobody will be able to say they've won the Tour before they cross the finish line of the Ventoux,” Christian Prudhomme, the Tour director, said as he unveiled the route of the 2009 race yesterday.

The barren mountain-top towers over the Rhône valley and has broken the morale of many riders since it was first introduced on the route in 1951. Tom Simpson, the British rider, collapsed and died on the Ventoux during the 1967 Tour, through a combination of heat exhaustion and amphetamine abuse.

Armstrong's difficult past relationship with the Tour may yet prevent him from racing in July. His comeback plan has been met largely with scorn in France and he has committed himself to riding in the Giro d'Italia in May. Yesterday, Johan Bruyneel, his Astana team manager, rated the Texan's chances of riding in next year's Tour as “50-50”. “He is definitely not excluding riding in the Tour,” Bruyneel said, “but it would have to be in an atmosphere that is serene and respectful.”

Even so, the indifference towards Armstrong's return was maintained yesterday. “It is up to him to decide whether he wants to come or not,” Prudhomme said. “His return on the Tour would neither be a bad, nor a good thing. Of course he is a special character, but for the Tour he is a rider like others.”

Bruyneel was sure that if Armstrong did race, he would be a contender. “Personally, I think he is capable,” he said. “He is in better shape than in October 2003 or 2004 because he used to take a big break after the Tour. He now needs to get this extra 1 per cent that will make the difference.”

Next year's race begins in Monaco on July 4 with a 15-kilometre individual time-trial, based on the twisting corniche roads that teeter over the principality. A string of flat stages, ideally suited to Mark Cavendish, the Briton who sprinted to four stage victories in last summer's Tour, then leads the Tour peloton along the Mediterranean and across the Spanish border to Barcelona.

The next stage, to the Arcalis ski resort in Andorra, is the first mountain stage of a race that is light on summit finishes but consistently hilly throughout. After leaving the Pyrenees, the convoy traverses France from southwest to northeast on the rolling roads of the centre of the country, finally turning south in Besançon, before a week of Alpine racing leads to the foot of the fearsome Ventoux.

In the 2000 Tour, Armstrong raced to the summit alongside the late Marco Pantani. On that occasion, Pantani took the victory, although Armstrong, with that year's Tour virtually won, later insisted that he had tactfully allowed the Italian to claim the win.

Next July, his most dangerous rival on the Ventoux could be another feisty climbing specialist, Alberto Contador, his Astana team-mate. The pair appear ready to work together, but during the American's sabbatical, Contador has won the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta a España to emerge as the dominant stage-racer of this generation.