Prologue: Uphill Prologue to kick off the race, definitely not the steepest climb and has a false flat, so the more roleur type climbers might make some small gains on the more pure climbers and puncheurs/time-trialists shouldn't be excluded from featuring in the top results either, or even winning the stage.

Stage 1: Begins with a 20km Emerald Loop, which can be used any number of times, it's quite a difficult start to the stage, before 'the wall' from Monbulk to Olinda as a good heartstarter, before a decent and about 60km of rolling terrain, finally the race turns towards Lake Mountain with 30km of steep uphills interlaced with short descents, before finally the turn onto the 'official' Lake Mountain climb (the real climb begins in Marysville) for the final, more consistant 10km amongst the dead gum trees, if there's still a group together, they'll be greeted by a short descent in the final 2km, before a steep sprint to the ski station.

Stage 2: The race sets up Mount Donna Buang early, imedietly giving the riders a taste of it, however, it's only a teaser of the difficulty, as they turn off midway at Cement Creek, down the Acheron way following undulating terrain round to Marysville, where they begin climbing the first tough section of Lake Mountain, before joining the route of stage 2 and following it back to Warbuton where the race concludes by finally taking on the full 17km climb.

Stage 3: On paper the easiest stage of the race, in practise, the most deceptive, the race is 192km of challenging undulations, some of which are quite large, with the 3rd ascent the race makes of Mount Dandenong mixed in the middle, it'll perhaps be a long wearing stage on everybody's legs and could be threatening to the GC of some less powerful climbers - especially if there's wind. The finish of the stage gets marginally flatter for a sprint in Warrigal, but any pure sprinters who decided to come here may have difficulties maintaining the legs to sprint against more powerful riders, unless they've managed to stay hidden well.

Stage 4: The queen stage of the race, concluding on the Hors Category Mount Baw Baw, which is 6km at 11.3% average, fortunately, the riders have a rather short stage before the tough climb, unfortunately it features much of the undulating routes from earlier in the race, especially the often decisive super-steep Vesper's hill midway through, which can be a springboard for a group to escape, although usually, these are the sorts of guys contesting Baw Baw, anyway.