Stage 412 kicks off where its predecessor checked out, and it’s not until the kite at halfway that you get any real sense of respite from a tough climbing stage. This one’s a real leg burner. Tooraweenah sits in a dip just off the Newell Highway, so having dropped down off the final climb at the end of stage 411, this stage begins with a couple of real testers that eventually take the elevation to well over two thousand feet.
The rollout is east, meandering and uphill. The first climb runs for two miles and gains over two hundred feet: that’ll be a real shock to your legs. There’s then a short hundred foot descent before the main climb kicks in at three miles: it’s three miles long and gains a further seven hundred feet. It’s a nasty climb on a winding road. When it tops out at six miles on one of the straighter sections of the early part of the stage, it’s not even the highest elevation of the stage. For that, after three miles of lumpy flatness, you have to wait until the road kicks up another two hundred feet at nine miles and finally you’ll have arrived at the highest elevation of the stage. That’s eight hundred feet of elevation gained in just ten miles, despite some descending for respite.
The good news however, as the A39 approaches Gowang at ten miles, is that the rest of the stage is relatively speaking downhill. The road hangs a big right hander around Parramamatta Mountain between miles ten and twelve, before swinging back left on an even longer left hander to sixteen miles. The road is featureless, apart from bends, hills and scrub either side, and it’s not until the big looping left hander at twenty miles that the next bit of fun kicks it: a mad descent down to the finish approaching the junction with Mendooran Road, south east of Warkton.
Distance: 23 miles / 37 kilometres
Ascent: 1539 feet / 469 metres
RGT Magic Road: 0mt5b0zs3Mz0
Max elevation: 2263 ft
Min elevation: 1368 ft
Total climbing: 1538 ft
Total descent: -1370 ft
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