There are two stages to Irkutsk and although there’s a stack of climbing to do, most of it is reserved for one big climb in the middle of the stage. As has been the norm for a good while now, the road follows the course of the railway and they cross a couple of times just after Sredny at nine miles. There’s very little forest on the stage and what there is falls to the east of Belorechensky at seventeen miles.
The rollout is lumpy flat out of Mikhaylovka for nine miles, lumpy as in not exactly flat and lumpy as in not exactly hilly. The road climbs for a mile from the off as it rounds a right hander then straightens for a couple of miles before negotiating a second right hander at three miles. That leads into a four mile straight ahead of a detour off and back onto the highway which is the route that Mark Beaumont took back in 2017. I normally remove roundabouts from the RGT stages because they’re simply annoying, but I left this excursion in place as it looks more significant and therefore perhaps interesting to ride.
Straight after the excursion is a steep five hundred foot climb to the junction to Novomal’tinskoye close by the halfway kite at twelve miles. Once you’re over the top, you start a long ten mile descent that swings left/right through Usol’ye-Sibirskoye before bottoming out on what is effectively the start of the three mile uphill finishing straight at twenty one miles.
Distance: 25 miles / 40 kilometres
Ascent: 968 feet / 295 metres
RGT Magic Road: tgNK1cKxwCSb
Max elevation: 1941 ft
Min elevation: 1254 ft
Total climbing: 965 ft
Total descent: -1104 ft
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