If you like hills, then you’ll like stage sixteen. This in only a toddler in climbing terms, compared to what lies ahead, but nevertheless, a climb is a climb and it has to be swatted away with no concern for the pain that goes with it. The towns on parade, which sadly you’ll bypass on RGT, are Bricht, Schermbeck, Wulfen and Hultern am See, where’s there’s a nice little causeway across the Halterner Stausee. It’s an east/north east affair, and roughly follows the line of both the Lippe river and the Wesel-Datteln canal.
After a couple of flat miles to warm up your legs, there’s a four mile climb from Schermbeck that crosses over autoroute 31 before peaking at the subsequent crossing of route 224: the climb’s never steep, just something to make you work for your place in the peleton. Then there’s a mad descent to cross the Hammbach river at eight miles before a flat stretch precedes another more undulating climb either side of the fifteen mile mark: that section takes in Deuten just after the Hammbach, and the Wienbach, Muhlengraben and Midlicher Muhlenbach rivers at ten miles. Having crossed all three, the road loops through the northern suburbs of Wulfen before tacking east past Barkenberg to the north and Lippramsdorf to the south.
Beyond Lippramsdorf, the road starts climbing again, but this time the ascent is much more lumpy than the first climb, The summit, which is also the highest elevation on the stage, is where route 58 passes between Eppendorf on the left (north) and Freiheit on the right (south). The descent is every bit as lumpy as the climb as it drops down into Haltern am See, and having passed through the town, the road crosses between the Halterner Stausee lake on the left (north) and the Sudbecken reservoir on the right (south). The Stever river flows into the lake immediately before the reservoir, the road crossing it at nineteen miles.
The last five miles after the lake are the flattest of the stage, passing through Hullern at twenty two miles and roughly following the Stever river, albeit a mile or so to the south of the meandering waterway. The finish, which comes at the end of a sweeping left hander, is where route 58 crosses the Stever at the eastern end of a much wider stretch of the river approaching Vieting.
Distance: 24 miles / 38 kilometres
Ascent: 404 feet / 123 metres
RGT Magic Road: kU9RuNHI5zYf
Max elevation: 752 ft
Min elevation: 644 ft
Total climbing: 361 ft
Total descent: -332 ft
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