Six stages to go, still heading in the right direction and as lumpy as hell. That’s stage 795, which apart from a couple of mad descents, is actually a climbing stage, and it will just about feel like it although the mid section is very much lumpy flat.
The rollout is gently uphill as it negotiates its way anti-clockwise around the ring road that skirts around La Chapelle Vendomoise before it becomes much more testing for the next two miles after that. The ring road hits the D957 after just half a mile and the route takes a left there, back into town before turning right onto the D26 Rue des Ecoles with a mile on the clock.
Out of town, the road rises to the junction with Le Chemin Vert at three miles just ahead of a steep descent to the left hander that leads into Champigny en Beauce a mile later, The descent is courtesy of the Ruisseau de Villay that crosses the road flowing left to right at four miles. Beyond the river, the road hangs a right at Champigny en Beauce and heads out north east, crossing the D39 (west to Selommes, east to Villeberfol) at five miles before snaking through Conan after seven miles.
Beyond Conan, the D26 crosses the La Cisse river at eight miles as it runs straight and lumpy flat to Boisseau a mile later. The road hangs a right into Boisseau then a left out of it, the nett result of which is a route heading in the same direction but half a mile to the east. Exactly the same thing happens two miles later at Villeneuve Frouville where the road hangs a right into the town then a left onto the D924 upon leaving it. But that’s a very short change of direction because after eleven miles, the route turns right again onto the D26 all over again (it’s just the way the highway snakes its way through the town).
From Villeneuve Frouville, as the road prepares to start climbing, it passes by La Coudraye at twelve miles before hanging a left onto the D156 Rue Augustin Houdin two miles later. That signals the start of the climb proper and by the time the road swings right/left/right though Saint Leonard en Beauce after fifteen miles, the climb is well under way. Out the other side of town, Le Ramage rattles by at sixteen miles then its onward to the summit in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Le Ramage and La Colombe, where the road hangs a right.
Off the top, the run down to La Colombe gathers pace and gradient as it passes through the community, and that carries on through La Gahandiere at nineteen miles ahead of the finish at the junction of the D26 with the east/west D357.
Distance: 21 miles / 34 kilometres
Ascent: 525 feet / 160 metres
RGT Magic Road: aZLvfbRBK73I
Max elevation: 452 ft
Min elevation: 316 ft
Total climbing: 526 ft
Total descent: -504 ft
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