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Root River Run

Root River Run is 29.3 miles of point-to-point riding through Fillmore and Houston Counties in Minnesota — Bluff Country, the Root River valley, the Mississippi bluffs and the ridge roads above them. Moving time is about 33 minutes; allow 50 with stops — a quick spin. It is scored CS-2, Easy: 34 corners, 112° of turning per mile, 607 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-2Easy · 1.16/mi
Distance
29.3 mi33 min riding
Corners
3453% sharp · Tight
Climbing
607 ft21 ft/mi · Gentle
Shape
Point-to-pointQuick spin
Roads
Backroads100% county & local
Traffic
1,411vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
60 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

The Root River is the signature stream of Minnesota’s Bluff Country—cold, clear, and deeply set in the rock. Its valley and side streams support excellent trout water and one of the state’s best multi-use trails. Towns like Lanesboro and Rushford grew as mill and railroad points tucked into the narrow bottoms. The surrounding country is classic: steep bluffs, narrow floodplains, farms on the broader ridge tops. A stretch of the Root River State Trail or a riverside pause in Lanesboro turns a good ride into a fuller day. The climbing is steady rather than extreme, yet the scenery is continuous and the sense of traveling through a coherent river system is strong. Whether you ride it as a point-to-point or combine it with adjacent loops, Root River country offers one of the clearest expressions of Minnesota’s unglaciated southeast. Water, bluffs, and the towns of Lanesboro and Rushford in easy conversation.

How it rides

34 corners over 29.3 miles — 1.16 a mile, and 112° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-2, Easy on the five-point curviness scale. 53% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 607 feet in total, 21 feet per mile, between 672 and 922 feet — 251 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 106 feet over 1.2 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 5.3%. By Driftless standards that is gentle.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 100% of it is back road rather than highway. Posted speeds run to 60 mph, typically 55, measured across 99% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 14% of the miles — the median is 1,411 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 17.1 with 4,457.

Where to stop

3 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 2 fuel, 11 food, 2 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 17.4 miles. Worth knowing before you set off if your tank is small.

Listed alphabetically, and chosen by us rather than rated by anybody. The order you reach them, and the mile each one sits at, are in the app.

Worth knowing

Turn-by-turn directions and the spoken guidance are in the app. Every figure on this page is measured from the route itself — corner counts and gradients from the road geometry, elevation from the national elevation dataset, traffic from the state transport departments where counts exist.

Nearby roads