Three States at Lansing

Three States at Lansing is a tour: 72.5 miles, a loop, through Allamakee, Clayton, Crawford, Houston, La Crosse, Vernon and Winona counties in Iowa and Minnesota and Wisconsin — Driftless Iowa, Bluff Country, Coulee Region. Moving time is about 85 minutes; allow 125 with stops. It is scored CS-1, Cruiser: 56 corners, 76° of turning per mile, 2,441 feet of climbing. Every mile of it is road that a route in the corpus already publishes — nothing here is new ground, and no route was changed to make it. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness

CS-1Cruiser · 0.77/mi

Distance

72.5 mi85 min riding

Corners

5630% sharp · Sweeping

Climbing

2,441 ft34 ft/mi · Rolling

Shape

LoopFull day

Surface

100% paved7% county and local

Speed limit

55 mphtypically 55 · 45% of miles posted

Traffic

Not counteda tour's traffic is not yet measured

About this road

The same idea, half the day. La Crosse into Minnesota, south on MN 26 to New Albin, down the Iowa bank to Lansing, and across the Mississippi there on the bridge that carries WIS 82 and IA 9 - then north up the Wisconsin Great River Road through Genoa and Stoddard and home. Seventy-two miles, three states, two crossings. The bridge is the whole reason this is the shorter ride, and it is new. The Black Hawk Bridge, which had stood since 1931, closed in October 2025 and was demolished; its replacement opens on 6 November 2026. Until the map carries the new span, the third of a mile across the water is drawn as a straight line between the two approaches that are mapped, and the route record says so. Like its longer sibling it is a cruise - CS-1, fifty-six corners in seventy-two miles - and like it, it begins and ends at Riverside Park, so the first two miles out are the last two back. At Genoa it passes Lock and Dam No. 8, in operation since April 1937.

Sources: Iowa DOT and WisDOT announcements of the bridge opening; Lock and Dam No. 8; WisDOT scenic byways.

The climb

What it is built from

Roads from 14 routes already in the corpus: Great River Road: New Albin to McGregor, Lansing Ridge Run, La Crescent and the Pine Creek Coulees, Great River Road: Winona to Brownsville, Nodine and the Pickwick Valleys, Great River Road: La Crescent to Iowa, Coon Valley Ridge Runner, Great River Road: La Crosse to Prairie du Chien, Rush Creek Bluffs Loop, Grandad Bluff to Coon Valley, Stoddard–Chaseburg–Coon Valley Loop, Two Highways and a River, Mormon Coulee to Chaseburg, Westby–Chaseburg–Genoa Ridge Descent.

Ride it

Tours are part of a subscription rather than the three free roads: a tour is a day built out of ten of them. See what a subscription costs, or open the app if you already have one.