Quebec is two more stages away after this one and the job of 708 is merely to make tracks up the eastern side of the St Lawrence River in order to make that possible. You get stages like this: they’re the plodders of any journey, but without them, there would be no fun at the end. This one’s a lumpy climber, which is ATW parlance for the fact that the elevation at the finish is higher than it is at the start, and there are lots of climbs and descents. It heads generally north east, but that said there’s a bit of messing about at the start to establish a course that heads in the right direction.
The rollout performs a dogleg left/right/left around Fortierville before crossing the Riviere aux Ormes at two miles after the final left turn back onto Highway 226. The road rises gently to three miles but then descends back down at four miles to Parisville where H226 hangs a right and finally sets a course for the rest of the stage. There’s another water crossing after the turn, the Premier Decharge, then the road remains straight to seven miles where it bends slightly right then while it crosses the Ruisseau des Castors and the Decharge Saint-Michel.
For a short while the road heads east as northern progress is blocked by the Riviere du Chene but after running alongside the meandering river for five miles, the road finally crosses it at thirteen miles. However the climb away from the river is as steep as the descent down to it and that will come as a nasty surprise: but once the climb is done, the terrain resumes its lumpy profile as the route rolls into Saint Edouard de Lotbiniere. There, Highway 226 crosses the Bras des Boucher before running alongside then crossing the Riviere du Bois Clair at twenty miles and that marks the start of the final climb to the finish approaching the junction of Highways 226 and 271 just south of Sainte Croix
Distance: 21 miles / 34 kilometres
Ascent: 404 feet / 123 metres
RGT Magic Road: cJDls69WfM7c
Max elevation: 310 ft
Min elevation: 243 ft
Total climbing: 399 ft
Total descent: -352 ft
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