indieVelo's Ice Switchbacks course is a 22.4km (13.9mi.) route with 641m (2,103ft.) of elevation gain with a 10.3km (6.4mi.) lead-in.
Route Description
indieVelo’s Ice Switchbacks course is a 22.4 kilometer (13.9 mile) route with 641-meters (2,103-feet) of elevation gain, with a 10.3 kilometer (6.4 mile) lead-in.
You’ll want to be warmed up for this one. Straight out of the gate, you are greeted by a left turn into a 9% grade up the icy slopes of Ice Mountain. After 500 meters, you get some relief as the slope eases and even teases you with a slight decline until 800 meters into your ride when you begin climbing again and enter the first of six switchbacks on the main climb.
You will spend most of your climb at around an 8% gradient, but some stretches ease off briefly to 3-4%. The maximum gradient you will encounter is 10%. After 247 m of climbing, you will reach the top of the climb at 3.6 km. A false flat of 200 meters is at the top of the climb.
Heavier racers gapped by light climbers on the climb can take heart at this point. Over the top of the flat, the descent quickly falls away to 8% and more in some spots. You can stop pedaling to enjoy a high-speed super tuck once you are over ~52 kph by pushing hard to build speed quickly on the descent. There are mercifully few braking corners on the descent; instead, you’ll find wonderful sweeping corners with only light braking in most and minimal velocity loss.
Enjoy your recovery. Long, straight descents at as much as 8% will produce 80 kph+ if you are drafting in a group. The first significant corner braking you will encounter is at 5.4 km, which is followed by a flat section. As you reach the apex of this corner, you can speed your descent greatly by pushing hard until 5.8 km, when you’ll resume your steep descent—back to the super tuck and recovery.
At 6.0 km, you’ll again encounter a false flat. Do what the racebots do there and the few other spots to come where the gradient is less than 5% descending—pedal hard to maintain your speed, then super tuck again and enjoy the finest sweeping corners indieVelo has to offer.
At 7.7 km, your reverie will be disturbed when you encounter a hard braking corner that will scrub off quite a bit of your speed. Push hard from the apex for a few hundred meters until you can super tuck descending at 5% again. You’ll reach your maximum speed on this course at the base of the climb.
When you hit the bottom of the descent at 9.2 km, it will tempt you into thinking your momentum will carry you over the next feature on the course—a hill up to the base of the main climb—yes, that climb again. Don’t be fooled. You have 1 km to go to the top of the hill. Even though the gradient drops to 2% in the middle, it steepens again in the last half to 6%. You’ll want to pace this one.
Route Profile
At 10.2 km, after you’ve climbed 296 m, you’ll encounter a banner as you crest the hill. This banner is the start of the Ice Switchbacks course. Yes, everything you just did was just the lead-in. Now, you can begin the actual course. Pay close attention to that banner and the climb leading to it because this is where you will finish this ride after another climb and descent.
This descent from the banner is brief and rolling. At 10.9 km, you will begin to climb again on the now familiar 8% grade for this mountain. At 11.2 km, you’ll reach a false flat and a fork in the road; you will go left. The next feature you will encounter on your climb at 12.4 km is another flat section. The road dips to a 4% descending gradient for a brief section. Not enough for a real recovery, but you’ll not complain.
At 12.8 km, you’ll encounter another fork in the road—and the scenery might start looking familiar to you. That is because you began this experience by riding onto this course from the road to your right at this junction. Now you are heading into the switchbacks again and know just what to do. You have 9.6 km left before the finish.
In summary, this is a climber’s course but kinder to heavier riders than most. It has a very fast descent (instead of the switchbacks you rode up on) and little corner braking, where gaps to climbers can be closed with close attention to maintaining speed in the few places where the gradient or sharp corners slow riders.
Special thank-you to Beta-tester Rob Miller!
For more indieVelo coure recons check out the indieVelo-Route Descriptions page!
Semi-retired after more than 20 years as the owner and director of a private Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice, Chris now enjoys the freedom to dedicate himself to his passions—virtual cycling and writing.
Driven to give back to the sport that has enriched his life with countless experiences and relationships, he founded a non-profit organization, TheDIRTDadFund. In the summer of 2022, he rode 3,900 miles from San Francisco to his “Gain Cave” on Long Island, New York, raising support for his charity.
His passion for cycling shines through in his writing, which has been featured in prominent publications like Cycling Weekly, Cycling News, road.cc, Zwift Insider, Endurance.biz, and Bicycling. In 2024, he was on-site in Abu Dhabi, covering the first live, in-person UCI Cycling Esports World Championship.
His contributions to cycling esports have not gone unnoticed, with his work cited in multiple research papers exploring this evolving discipline. He sits alongside esteemed esports scientists as a member of the Virtual Sports Research Network and contributes to groundbreaking research exploring the new frontier of virtual physical sport. Chris co-hosts The Virtual Velo Podcast, too.
