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Two Highways and a River
Two Highways and a River is 51.8 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 66 minutes; allow 95 with stops — a half day. It is scored CS-5, Technical: 107 corners, 185° of turning per mile, 2,438 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.
- Curviness
- CS-5Technical · 2.07/mi
- Distance
- 51.8 mi66 min riding
- Corners
- 10747% sharp · Tight
- Climbing
- 2,438 ft48 ft/mi · Steep
- Shape
- LoopHalf day
- Roads
- Backroads54% county & local
- Traffic
- 1,000vehicles a day, median
- Speed limit
- 55 mphtypically 55
How it rides
107 corners over 51.8 miles — 2.07 a mile, and 185° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-5, Technical on the five-point curviness scale. 47% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.
What it climbs
The road climbs 2,438 feet in total, 48 feet per mile, between 624 and 1,292 feet — 668 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 491 feet over 1.6 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 9.5%. By Driftless standards that is steep.
Surface, speed and traffic
98.5% paved; the odd short stretch is gravel or seal coat. 54% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 46% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 43% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 20% of the miles — the median is 1,000 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 27.5 with 4,000.
- 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.