The race started outside France, in Luxembourg, and passed through the Wallonia region of Belgium, before taking an anti-clockwise route through France, starting in the northwest in Brittany before visiting the Pyrenees and then the Alps. The race consisted of seven mountain stages, two in the Pyrenees and five in the Alps. The highest point of elevation in the race was the Col du Galibier at . In total there were five time trial events including the prologue. Pedro Delgado pointed to stage 17 up the Alpe d'Huez, one of the most prominent mountain-top finishes of the Tour, as the stage most likely to decide the outcome of the race. Unusually, the last of the time trials was held on the last stage of the race, finishing on the Champs-Élysées. This had been the idea of former race director Jean-François Naquet-Radiguet, who had taken over the position from Jacques Goddet and Félix Lévitan in May 1987. Naquet-Radiguet was unpopular in France and was replaced by Jean-Marie Leblanc before the 1989 route was announced, but the final-day time trial remained. It was the first time that the Tour ended with a time trial since 1968, when Jan Janssen overcame a 16-second deficit to Herman Van Springel to win the Tour by 38 seconds, the smallest margin up to 1989.