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Freeburg and the River Coulees
Freeburg and the River Coulees is 25.3 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 29 minutes; allow 40 with stops — a quick spin. It is scored CS-1, Cruiser: 20 corners, 85° of turning per mile, 975 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.
- Curviness
- CS-1Cruiser · 0.79/mi
- Distance
- 25.3 mi29 min riding
- Corners
- 2050% sharp · Tight
- Climbing
- 975 ft39 ft/mi · Hilly
- Shape
- LoopQuick spin
- Roads
- Backroads100% county & local
- Traffic
- 298vehicles a day, median
- Speed limit
- 60 mphtypically 60
How it rides
20 corners over 25.3 miles — 0.79 a mile, and 85° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-1, Cruiser on the five-point curviness scale. 50% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.
What it climbs
The road climbs 975 feet in total, 39 feet per mile, between 1,041 and 1,330 feet — 289 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 174 feet over 1.5 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 7.3%. By Driftless standards that is hilly.
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 73% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 21% of the miles — the median is 298 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 8.7 with 5,028.
- Backroads
- Loop
- 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.