I guess that when they built the M55 highway (and the railway) through this undulating area of southern Siberia, the simplest solution was to follow the river, so that’s exactly what they did. Almost.
Stage 231 heads out east/north east, much like the preceding stage, and it remains that way, sandwiched between the Selenga river and the railway line, for twelve very flat miles, the first seven of which are also pretty straight: but that changes at the seven mark when the road enters a very long right hander that takes you through Tataurovskoye and onward to Burdukovo. There, the route does a wee shimmy right and left then does a double crossing of the railway before hanging a sharp right that takes you back west into a series of hairpins as the road tackles the climb up to Yelovka. The road rises five hundred feet in two miles, snaking left then right before finally cresting the summit at sixteen miles and dropping back down the other side of the hill to both the river and the railway. The re-unification happens at nineteen miles and the highway resumes its trip south.
There’s a small rise entering the right hander at twenty one miles but it’s nothing to really trouble the scorers. The stage finish is on a left hand bend where the road runs right alongside the river with the railway across on the opposite bank, having crossed the water at twenty miles. The run in to the finish assumes a gentle descent for the last couple of miles.
Distance: 24 miles / 38 kilometres
Ascent: 892 feet / 272 metres
RGT Magic Road: IyBx4gaK1VV7
Max elevation: 2116 ft
Min elevation: 1561 ft
Total climbing: 893 ft
Total descent: -849 ft
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