After all the meanderings east and west since leaving Bordeaux, stage 796 finally locks onto Paris. There are just four stages to go after this and it looks like the home run is finally underway. This is a really lumpy stage, as in ‘really lumpy’ yet it only has three hundred and fiftyish feet of either climbing or descending: what that means it that it will ride like one of those annoying stages in which you can never quite find a gear that works all the time.
The rollout on the D50 is lumpy and uphill for a mile to Villecellier, after which the road peaks and descends to the north west/south east junction of the D3 (north west is to Ouzouer le Doyen; south east is to La Folletiere). Beyond the junction, the road descends in typically lumpy fashion to Les Maisons Neuves and Lierville, where the road loops left/right/left before retaining the same north easterly tack. Shortly after, the road curves left then descends steeply into Verdes where the stage achieves the rare feat of a joint lowest elevation where the road crosses the L’Aigre river after five miles.
Out of L’Aigre, the D50 climbs up to Le Mesnil before settling into the lumpy flat rhythm that characterises the next eleven miles. The road curves clockwise around the left hand side of Membrolles after seven miles before the D50 comes to an abrupt end a mile later in the middle of nowhere. The reason is because the route crosses the border from the Loir et Cher department of administration into the departmemt of Eure et Loir, and it has it’s own convention of road numbers. So the D50 ends at the border and the left hand turn of what was the D50 becomes the D127.
The D127 takes the route north through Ozoir le Breuil at nine miles and onward to Villeloup a mile later where the road bends left and north west. The highway slaloms its way through Villemaury at twelve miles then crosses the east/west D955 shortly after. The D127 hangs a right at thirteen miles where the D144 joins it, having come east from Menainville, but the road remains the D127. Onward through La Gare, Villentiere and Mosny in quick succession, the road takes a long left hand curve at fifteen miles before turning right onto the D927 at Civry and descending down into Varize where it crosses the La Conie river: the elevation at the crossing is exactly the same as the earlier crossing in Verdes.
The river comes just after the road hangs a left hander onto the Rue de Chateau and as it leaves town, the road bends right into a three mile straight that undulates up and down to the finish approaching Cormainville.
Distance: 20 miles / 32 kilometres
Ascent: 433 feet / 132 metres
RGT Magic Road: IpvoEWaGJxNX
Max elevation: 392 ft
Min elevation: 325 ft
Total climbing: 424 ft
Total descent: -402 ft
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