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Springwater and the Upper Iowa
Springwater and the Upper Iowa is 27.8 miles of loop riding through Winneshiek County in Iowa — Driftless Iowa, the Upper Iowa, the Yellow River country and the climbs out of the Mississippi. Moving time is about 39 minutes; allow 55 with stops — a quick spin. It is scored CS-4, Twisty: 46 corners, 152° of turning per mile, 1,468 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.
- Curviness
- CS-4Twisty · 1.65/mi
- Distance
- 27.8 mi39 min riding
- Corners
- 4654% sharp · Tight
- Climbing
- 1,468 ft53 ft/mi · Relentless
- Shape
- LoopQuick spin
- Roads
- Backroads100% county & local
- Traffic
- —no published counts
- Speed limit
- 55 mphtypically 55
How it rides
46 corners over 27.8 miles — 1.65 a mile, and 152° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-4, Twisty on the five-point curviness scale. 54% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.
What it climbs
The road climbs 1,468 feet in total, 53 feet per mile, between 861 and 1,277 feet — 417 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 351 feet over 2.6 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 7.9%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.
Surface, speed and traffic
79.5% paved — the rest is gravel or seal coat, so check the surface before you commit. 100% of it is back road rather than highway. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 55% of the route. No published traffic counts cover this route, so it carries no traffic figure rather than a borrowed one.
- Sport ride
- Backroads
- Loop
- River road
- Big climbs
Worth knowing
- 20% unverified surface
- Fuel sparse — top off before you go
Turn-by-turn directions and the spoken notes along the way 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.