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Highway 56: Genoa to Viola
Highway 56: Genoa to Viola is 32.3 miles of point-to-point riding through Vernon County in Wisconsin — the Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west Wisconsin. Moving time is about 37 minutes; allow 55 with stops — a quick spin. It is scored CS-3, Spirited: 49 corners, 121° of turning per mile, 1,905 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.
- Curviness
- CS-3Spirited · 1.52/mi
- Distance
- 32.3 mi37 min riding
- Corners
- 4931% sharp · Sweeping
- Climbing
- 1,905 ft59 ft/mi · Relentless
- Shape
- Point-to-pointQuick spin
- Roads
- Highway miles3% county & local
- Traffic
- 1,700vehicles a day, median
- Speed limit
- 55 mphtypically 55
How it rides
49 corners over 32.3 miles — 1.52 a mile, and 121° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-3, Spirited on the five-point curviness scale. 31% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as sweeping.
What it climbs
The road climbs 1,905 feet in total, 59 feet per mile, between 648 and 1,294 feet — 646 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 518 feet over 2.2 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 8.8%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.
Surface, speed and traffic
Paved end to end. 3% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 97% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 93% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 25% of the miles — the median is 1,700 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 19.4 with 3,400.
- One way
- Big climbs
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.