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Kickapoo Ridges: Viroqua to Readstown

Kickapoo Ridges: Viroqua to Readstown is 74.4 miles of loop riding through Vernon and Crawford Counties in Wisconsin — Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west wisconsin. Moving time is about 94 minutes; allow 135 with stops — a full day. It is scored CS-3, Spirited: 118 corners, 180° of turning per mile, 4,296 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-3Spirited · 1.59/mi
Distance
74.4 mi94 min riding
Corners
11847% sharp · Tight
Climbing
4,296 ft58 ft/mi · Relentless
Shape
LoopFull day
Roads
93% back road7% state or US route
Traffic
Not countedno state counts on these roads
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

Ridge road between two rivers. The route works the high ground separating the Kickapoo from its West Fork, dropping into Viola and Readstown and climbing back out each time. The Driftless country it crosses was never glaciated, which is why the ridges stand where flatter country elsewhere in Wisconsin was levelled. Expect to change road often — this is a route assembled from county highways rather than one long highway, and the turning is spread across the whole ride rather than concentrated in a few corners.

How it rides

118 corners over 74.4 miles — 1.59 a mile, and 180° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-3, Spirited on the five-point curviness scale. 47% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 4,296 feet in total, 58 feet per mile, between 702 and 1,347 feet — 645 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 435 feet over 1.5 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 9.8%. For this country that is relentless.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 93% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 7% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 24% of the route. State traffic counts cover only 4% of these miles, too little to put a number on, which is itself a fair sign of how quiet they are.

Where to stop

4 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 5 fuel, 4 food, 5 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 26.6 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.

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 NASA SRTM, traffic from the state transport department where counts exist.

Nearby roads