Here’s another rollicking lump bumpy ride across northern New South Wales. Nine hundred feet up, nine hundred feet down and a swine of a finish. It would be a good idea to bring your mental A game to this: there’s virtually no flat tarmac so suffering is the default option.
The rollout is uphill but for only half a mile which is really nothing at all. The next four miles, to the Croppa Moree Road junction, are all downhill and the descent is significant as it loses two hundred and fifty feet. As the Newell Highway starts climbing again, it crosses Wallon Creek at five miles on a climb that doesn’t top out until nine miles.
The next bunch of water is Gil Gil Creek at twelve miles after the next down/up: the Gil Gil Rest Area is on the upslope just before the water crossing. Gil Gil Camp follows at thirteen miles just after the start of a four mile straight that doesn’t end until a left/right combo of bends at sixteen miles.
The latter part of the straight and the subsequent bends are part of a lumpy five mile descent that passes by Terlings Camp at nineteen miles as the descent bottoms out. If you’re thinking that you’ve done a lot of descending to this point, then you’re dead right, you have. But you’re about to pay the price.
In the three miles from nineteen to twenty two, the A39 rises by four hundred feet and that’s going to hurt, especially if you’re thinking of pushing a good pace. The top of the climb comes at twenty two miles, just a mile from the end of the stage, and as the road bends right then left into the finish, it descends by a hundred feet to the line.
Distance: 23 miles / 37 kilometres
Distance: 23 miles / 37 kilometres
Ascent: 948 feet / 289 metres
RGT Magic Road: dLe3kNkQQTSL
Max elevation: 856 ft
Min elevation: 460 ft
Total climbing: 950 ft
Total descent: -916 ft
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