One of the biggest women’s races in the cycling calendar will roll out of Rotterdam on Monday as the Tour de France Femmes opens with three stages in the Netherlands.

Dutch sprinter Lorena Wiebes is among the favourites to claim the yellow jersey on day one of the seven-stage race, a 123-kilometre route from Rotterdam through Westland to The Hague.

Stage one is expected to end in a mass sprint due to the lack of hills on the Dutch roads, although the Maas-Delta tunnel is classed as a category 4 climb, meaning points will be on offer in the Queen of the Mountains competition.

The Dutch also have one of the best climbers in the field, last year’s overall winner Demi Vollering, who is expected to feature prominently in the latter stages of the race, including a climb to the summit of Alpe d’Huez on the final day.

On Tuesday the riders will tackle a short flat stage from Dordrecht to Rotterdam and an individual time trial in the port city. On Wednesday the race leaves Valkenburg before crossing the border to Liège in Belgium.

The route has avoided most tourist hotspots, but roads will be closed to traffic in Rotterdam around lunchtime and through Westland and the south-west suburbs of The Hague from mid-afternoon as the riders head towards the finish in Kijkduin.

33C heat

The racers will also have to contend with soaring mid-afternoon temperatures of up to 33C in the closing stages on the hottest day of the year in the Netherlands so far.

The last 21 kilometres of Monday’s stage in The Hague includes a loop of the Zuiderpark, where a photo exhibition of female cyclists has been organised to promote the race. Posters of yellow jerseys have been hung from all 900 lamp posts along the route.

In Naaldwijk a giant floral tribute has been planted along the route in honour of Mien van Bree, who became the first Dutch woman to win the cycling world championship in 1938.

Van Bree founded a cycling club in the 1930s and regularly travelled to Belgium for races because women were banned from competitions in the Netherlands. The Nederlandse Wielren Unie did not issue the first licenses for female competitors until 1959.