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Vernon County Ridge & Valley

Vernon County Ridge & Valley is 44.6 miles of loop riding through Vernon County in Wisconsin — the Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west Wisconsin. Moving time is about 59 minutes; allow 85 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-4, Twisty: 84 corners, 169° of turning per mile, 1,721 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-4Twisty · 1.88/mi
Distance
44.6 mi59 min riding
Corners
8448% sharp · Tight
Climbing
1,721 ft39 ft/mi · Hilly
Shape
LoopHalf morning
Roads
Backroads56% county & local
Traffic
4,100vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

Pure Vernon County ridge-and-valley riding—high corner density, mixed character, and authentic Coulee Region feel—defines this loop. Vernon County is the heart of Wisconsin’s Norwegian settlement in the Driftless and also hosts significant Amish populations. The roads follow the land’s own logic: long ridge crests, steep drops into coulees, and tight valley sections. Conservation history centered on Coon Valley and the cultural layers of Norwegian and Amish life are both close at hand. As a representative sample of everything that makes the Coulee Region special, the ride needs no further justification. Services are available in the valley towns; the ridge miles supply the elevation, the views, and the sense of riding through a landscape that is both physically demanding and culturally layered. This is the Coulee Region in concentrated form around Vernon County. Climb the ridges, drop into the valleys, notice the culture along the way.

How it rides

84 corners over 44.6 miles — 1.88 a mile, and 169° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-4, Twisty on the five-point curviness scale. 48% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 1,721 feet in total, 39 feet per mile, between 745 and 1,375 feet — 630 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 523 feet over 3.4 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 10.5%. By Driftless standards that is hilly.

Surface, speed and traffic

97.4% paved; the odd short stretch is gravel or seal coat. 56% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 44% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 43% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 31% of the miles — the median is 4,100 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 14.3 with 12,700.

Where to stop

4 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 9 fuel, 10 food, 4 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 15.6 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.

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