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Nodine and the Pickwick Valleys

Nodine and the Pickwick Valleys is 66.7 miles of loop riding through Winona and Houston Counties in Minnesota — Bluff Country, the Root River valley, the Mississippi bluffs and the ridge roads above them. Moving time is about 84 minutes; allow 120 with stops — a full day. It is scored CS-2, Easy: 81 corners, 133° of turning per mile, 2,826 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-2Easy · 1.21/mi
Distance
66.7 mi84 min riding
Corners
8154% sharp · Tight
Climbing
2,826 ft43 ft/mi · Hilly
Shape
LoopFull day
Roads
Backroads75% county & local
Traffic
525vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
65 mphtypically 65
Open this route in the app

About this road

Nodine and Pickwick sit in the Mississippi bluff country south of Winona. Pickwick occupies a tight valley; the surrounding roads climb steeply to the bluffs that frame the big river. River influence is strong—milder air, views, and the constant sense of the Mississippi corridor. The same bluff line continues for many miles north and south. Any opening that gives a clear view of the river and the far Wisconsin shore delivers the classic prospect. This loop balances enclosed valley sections with open bluff-top prospects around Nodine and Pickwick, giving a complete sample of the river-edge landform in a moderate distance. It pairs naturally with Winona-area routes or the Great River Road segment for a fuller Mississippi-focused day. Climb to the edge, look across the water, descend into the next valley.

How it rides

81 corners over 66.7 miles — 1.21 a mile, and 133° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-2, Easy on the five-point curviness scale. 54% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 2,826 feet in total, 43 feet per mile, between 635 and 1,290 feet — 655 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 507 feet over 1.9 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 9.8%. By Driftless standards that is hilly.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 75% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 25% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 65 mph, typically 65, measured across 41% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 25% of the miles — the median is 525 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 4.8 with 11,294.

Where to stop

Nothing listed on this road yet. It passes 7 places and we have nothing listed in any of them. Some of these places are a church and a grain bin rather than a village. Carry what you need, and start with a full tank.

We would rather say a road has nothing on it than fill the space with a guess — a stop that is not there is worse than no stop at all when you are thirty miles from anywhere.

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