This is another brute of a stage in the journey across the Ural Mountains, but thankfully it’s the last of the biggies for now. It doesn’t have the repetitive undulations of some of the recent stages, but what it does have is a long climb, two beasts and a difficult finish.
The rollout from Verkhnyayais is uphill and it remains that way for three miles until the highway is well into the forest having passed by the Talitsa river. That’s followed by a sudden rapid descent down to a right hander near Kazanskiy Klyuch and that marks the start of the longest climb of the stage, an ascent of two hundred feet over four miles that crests at the edge of the forest approaching Chekmeni.
There’s a steep descent down to the Malaya Syrka river at eleven miles and that kicks off the steepest climb of the stage, a three hundred footer in just over a mile: that one tops out just before Tumany where the road dives back downhill to cross the Yelikha river at fourteen miles. The crossing is the lowest elevation of the stage. Then it’s straight into another big climb, gaining all of the three hundred feet of the previous descent, and more, cresting at the junction of the P243 to Karagayskiy to the north. That’s followed by a lumpy, straight flat section to the junction for Saviny at eighteen miles, before it’s downhill again to cross the Yelikha river again just after twenty one miles. As the elevation is higher here than at the previous crossing, it suggests that the flow is against the direction of cycling.
And finally, as if you haven’t suffered enough already, the finish is at the top of a nasty wee hundred foot climb in half a mile on a long left hander in the middle of the forest.
Distance: 22 miles / 35 kilometres
Ascent: 1302 feet / 397 metres
RGT Magic Road: JGnML7nPQGR9
Max elevation: 786 ft
Min elevation: 387 ft
Total climbing: 1304 ft
Total descent: -1335 ft
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