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Lansing and the Waterville Coulees

Lansing and the Waterville Coulees is 33.2 miles of loop riding through Allamakee County in Iowa — Driftless Iowa, the Upper Iowa, the Yellow River country and the climbs out of the Mississippi. Moving time is about 47 minutes; allow 70 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-2, Easy: 42 corners, 123° of turning per mile, 1,686 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-2Easy · 1.26/mi
Distance
33.2 mi47 min riding
Corners
4243% sharp · Mixed
Climbing
1,686 ft51 ft/mi · Relentless
Shape
LoopHalf morning
Roads
Backroads100% county & local
Traffic
—no published counts
Open this route in the app

About this road

The Mississippi town of Lansing and the inland coulee country around Waterville form the two poles of this ride. Waterville sits in a classic Allamakee valley; the surrounding roads climb quickly onto the ridges and, on the Lansing end, open toward the big river. Big climbs and sweeping Mississippi views are possible near town; the Waterville side supplies the quieter, more enclosed experience. The contrast between river landing and interior woodland is the geographic story. Bluff parks in Lansing and the shaded valleys inland together give a complete cross-section of Allamakee County. Long enough to feel substantial, compact enough that both Lansing and Waterville stay in play. An excellent choice when you want the full topographic range—from floodplain to high ridge—in a single coherent circuit.

How it rides

42 corners over 33.2 miles — 1.26 a mile, and 123° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-2, Easy on the five-point curviness scale. 43% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as mixed.

What it climbs

The road climbs 1,686 feet in total, 51 feet per mile, between 622 and 1,256 feet — 634 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 547 feet over 3.3 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 7.1%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.

Surface, speed and traffic

84.6% paved — the rest is gravel or seal coat, so check the surface before you commit. 100% of it is back road rather than highway. No published traffic counts cover this route, so it carries no traffic figure rather than a borrowed one.

Where to stop

2 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 1 fuel, 2 food, 1 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 33.2 miles. Worth knowing before you set off if your tank is small. Some towns on this road are not yet measured along the line, so treat that as the worst case rather than the likely one.

Listed alphabetically, and chosen by us rather than rated by anybody. The order you reach them, and the mile each one sits at, are in the app.

Worth knowing

Turn-by-turn directions and the spoken guidance 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.

Nearby roads