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Eitzen and the Southern Coulees
Eitzen and the Southern Coulees is 22.7 miles of loop 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 31 minutes; allow 45 with stops — a quick spin. It is scored CS-4, Twisty: 39 corners, 148° of turning per mile, 1,034 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.
- Curviness
- CS-4Twisty · 1.72/mi
- Distance
- 22.7 mi31 min riding
- Corners
- 3954% sharp · Tight
- Climbing
- 1,034 ft46 ft/mi · Steep
- Shape
- LoopQuick spin
- Roads
- Backroads100% county & local
- Traffic
- 857vehicles a day, median
- Speed limit
- 60 mphtypically 55
How it rides
39 corners over 22.7 miles — 1.72 a mile, and 148° 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 1,034 feet in total, 46 feet per mile, between 1,016 and 1,339 feet — 323 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 175 feet over 1.5 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 7.5%. By Driftless standards that is steep.
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 23% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 26% of the miles — the median is 857 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 0.0 with 4,604.
- Sport ride
- Backroads
- Loop
- Low traffic
Worth knowing
- 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.