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Upper Iowa Bluffs

Upper Iowa Bluffs is 48.4 miles of loop riding through Winneshiek County in Iowa — Driftless Iowa, the Upper Iowa, the Yellow River country and the climbs out of the Mississippi. Moving time is about 67 minutes; allow 95 with stops — a half day. It is scored CS-4, Twisty: 79 corners, 143° of turning per mile, 2,202 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-4Twisty · 1.63/mi
Distance
48.4 mi67 min riding
Corners
7961% sharp · Tight
Climbing
2,202 ft46 ft/mi · Steep
Shape
LoopHalf day
Roads
Backroads98% county & local
Traffic
—no published counts
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

Imagine a river so clear and cold it seems to run straight from the rock itself. That’s the Upper Iowa, cutting a deep green trench through some of the most dramatic country in the Midwest. The bluffs rise sharply on either side, the roads climbing and twisting with the land instead of fighting it. This is country the last glaciers never flattened, so every ridge and valley still holds its original shape. Decorah sits at the heart of it all—a town named for the Ho-Chunk leader Waukon Decorah and later shaped by Norwegian settlers. Luther College and Vesterheim, the national Norwegian-American museum, still anchor its character. A stop at Vesterheim or a short paddle on the Upper Iowa turns a good ride into a full day. The climbs are honest, the views open suddenly, and the water is never far. If you want a route that feels both wild and welcoming, the Upper Iowa bluffs around Decorah deliver.

How it rides

79 corners over 48.4 miles — 1.63 a mile, and 143° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-4, Twisty on the five-point curviness scale. 61% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 2,202 feet in total, 46 feet per mile, between 836 and 1,301 feet — 465 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 367 feet over 2.7 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 8.2%. By Driftless standards that is steep.

Surface, speed and traffic

85.5% paved — the rest is gravel or seal coat, so check the surface before you commit. 98% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 2% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 21% of the route. No published traffic counts cover this route, so it carries no traffic figure rather than a borrowed one.

Where to stop

1 of the towns on this road has somewhere to stop — 3 fuel, 6 food, 2 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 47.7 miles. Worth knowing before you set off if your tank is small.

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