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Amish Harmony

Amish Harmony is 45.2 miles of loop riding through Fillmore County in Minnesota — Bluff Country, the Root River valley, the Mississippi bluffs and the ridge roads above them. Moving time is about 56 minutes; allow 80 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-3, Spirited: 60 corners, 117° of turning per mile, 2,133 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-3Spirited · 1.33/mi
Distance
45.2 mi56 min riding
Corners
6052% sharp · Tight
Climbing
2,133 ft47 ft/mi · Steep
Shape
LoopHalf morning
Roads
Backroads63% county & local
Traffic
1,224vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
60 mphtypically 60
Open this route in the app

About this road

In 1974 Swartzentruber Amish families from Wayne County, Ohio, found what they needed around Harmony and Canton: affordable small farms, timber, and natural springs. The community has grown into Minnesota’s largest Amish settlement. Horse-drawn buggies, plain dress, and roadside stands selling quilts, furniture, baked goods, and produce are everyday sights on these roads. The town’s own name comes from a nineteenth-century meeting that ended an argument with the practical suggestion, “Let’s have Harmony here!” Driving slowly and respectfully is both courtesy and the best way to absorb the living landscape. A guided tour or a stop at a roadside stand turns the ride into an encounter rather than a transit. The surrounding country is rolling to moderately steep, fully characteristic of the region, yet the cultural presence around Harmony is what distinguishes the experience. One of the clearest opportunities in the whole set to combine authentic Bluff Country riding with a living traditional community.

How it rides

60 corners over 45.2 miles — 1.33 a mile, and 117° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-3, Spirited on the five-point curviness scale. 52% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 2,133 feet in total, 47 feet per mile, between 828 and 1,337 feet — 509 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 417 feet over 3.4 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 9.8%. By Driftless standards that is steep.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 63% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 37% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 60 mph, typically 60, measured across 48% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 33% of the miles — the median is 1,224 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 29.2 with 6,143.

Where to stop

4 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 2 fuel, 10 food, 2 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 25 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