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Pilot Mound and the Fillmore Ridges

Pilot Mound and the Fillmore Ridges is 37.6 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 45 minutes; allow 65 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-4, Twisty: 65 corners, 148° of turning per mile, 1,879 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-4Twisty · 1.73/mi
Distance
37.6 mi45 min riding
Corners
6551% sharp · Tight
Climbing
1,879 ft50 ft/mi · Relentless
Shape
LoopHalf morning
Roads
Backroads83% county & local
Traffic
1,579vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
60 mphtypically 60
Open this route in the app

About this road

The Pilot Mound area and the surrounding Fillmore County ridges produce higher technical and effort scores through tight geometry and continuous climbing. Pilot Mound itself is a local high point used historically for orientation. Quiet roads and strong regional character make the loop a rewarding sport ride. Including the mound and taking in the full view turns the physical effort into a clear sense of place. The demand is earned by the frequency of direction and elevation changes rather than by extreme individual grades. A pure expression of the more dissected upland around Pilot Mound—ideal when the goal is continuous geometric engagement and the satisfaction of a named high point as both landmark and viewpoint. Climb, turn, climb again. The view from Pilot Mound justifies every corner.

How it rides

65 corners over 37.6 miles — 1.73 a mile, and 148° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-4, Twisty on the five-point curviness scale. 51% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 1,879 feet in total, 50 feet per mile, between 787 and 1,312 feet — 525 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 426 feet over 3.4 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 8.0%. By Driftless standards that is relentless.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 83% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 17% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 60 mph, typically 60, measured across 48% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 27% of the miles — the median is 1,579 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 37.2 with 6,320.

Where to stop

3 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 2 fuel, 7 food, 2 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 28.3 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