ScenicCurvesHome / Routes / Minnesota / Choice Ridge: Houston to Spring Grove
Choice Ridge: Houston to Spring Grove
Choice Ridge: Houston to Spring Grove is 48.6 miles of point-to-point riding through Houston County in Minnesota — Bluff Country, the Root River valley, the Mississippi bluffs and the ridge roads above them. Moving time is about 61 minutes; allow 90 with stops — a half day. It is scored CS-2, Easy: 63 corners, 105° of turning per mile, 2,806 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.
- Curviness
- CS-2Easy · 1.3/mi
- Distance
- 48.6 mi61 min riding
- Corners
- 6348% sharp · Tight
- Climbing
- 2,806 ft58 ft/mi · Relentless
- Shape
- Point-to-pointHalf day
- Roads
- Backroads100% county & local
- Traffic
- 287vehicles a day, median
- Speed limit
- 60 mphtypically 60
How it rides
63 corners over 48.6 miles — 1.3 a mile, and 105° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-2, Easy 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 2,806 feet in total, 58 feet per mile, between 678 and 1,335 feet — 657 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 531 feet over 2.1 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 10.4%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.
Surface, speed and traffic
Paved end to end. 100% of it is back road rather than highway. Posted speeds run to 60 mph, typically 60, measured across 22% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 20% of the miles — the median is 287 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 48.5 with 4,604.
- Scenic cruise
- Backroads
- One way
- Big climbs
- Low traffic
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.