This is one of those annoying stages where most of the hard work comes after halfway. I don’t know about you, but I much prefer to get the climbing done before the yellow kite then relax in the second half. That’s absolutely not the case here.
The rollout is uphill and heading south west for two miles. South west is of course the wrong direction because it doesn’t take you where you need to be going: it’s a kind of neutral direction. But it’s merely a requirement to get you out of town: once you’ve turned left, you get three miles of downhill to the crossing of the Oka river in Ukhtuyskoye at seven miles.
The route then bumbles along a lumpy flat straight for three miles before starting the climbing in earnest. If you ignore the little bit of respite as the road passes by Nizhnechirkina at twelve miles, you’re basically climbing all the way to twenty one miles, and the highest elevation of the stage at over eighteen hundred feet. Those eight miles climb around five hundred feet as the road snakes its way through the forest.
There’s irony as you finally go over the summit, because not only do you see the back of the climbing, but you also see the back of the trees and the last three miles are as rapidly downhill as the previous three were slow going uphill. Prepare yourself for a flying run in to the finish.
Distance: 24 miles / 38 kilometres
Ascent: 781 feet / 238 metres
RGT Magic Road: EGaGXi6CYMq4
Max elevation: 1805 ft
Min elevation: 1319 ft
Total climbing: 780 ft
Total descent: -727 ft
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