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Highway 56 & Readstown Loop
Highway 56 & Readstown Loop is 30.6 miles of loop 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-4, Twisty: 50 corners, 156° of turning per mile, 1,563 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.
- Curviness
- CS-4Twisty · 1.63/mi
- Distance
- 30.6 mi37 min riding
- Corners
- 5038% sharp · Sweeping
- Climbing
- 1,563 ft51 ft/mi · Relentless
- Shape
- LoopQuick spin
- Roads
- Mixed roads27% county & local
- Traffic
- 1,700vehicles a day, median
- Speed limit
- 55 mphtypically 55
How it rides
50 corners over 30.6 miles — 1.63 a mile, and 156° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-4, Twisty on the five-point curviness scale. 38% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as sweeping.
What it climbs
The road climbs 1,563 feet in total, 51 feet per mile, between 733 and 1,299 feet — 565 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 367 feet over 1.2 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 8.8%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.
Surface, speed and traffic
97.6% paved; the odd short stretch is gravel or seal coat. 27% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 73% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 58% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 31% of the miles — the median is 1,700 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 30.1 with 11,700.
- Sport ride
- Loop
- Big climbs
Worth knowing
- Busy stretch near mile 30 (11,700 vehicles a day)
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.