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Crawford Ridge Runner

Crawford Ridge Runner is 36.6 miles of point-to-point riding through Crawford County in Wisconsin — the Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west Wisconsin. Moving time is about 44 minutes; allow 65 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-3, Spirited: 55 corners, 131° of turning per mile, 1,691 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-3Spirited · 1.5/mi
Distance
36.6 mi44 min riding
Corners
5533% sharp · Sweeping
Climbing
1,691 ft46 ft/mi · Steep
Shape
Point-to-pointHalf morning
Roads
Mixed roads20% county & local
Traffic
1,800vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

Ridge running in Crawford County stays high and open, delivering long views toward the Mississippi and the Kickapoo system. The point-to-point emphasizes the upland perspective. Crawford County contains some of the most dramatic bluff and river scenery in Wisconsin. Ridges were preferred for farms and roads; the steep slopes stayed wooded. Stopping at a clear overlook lets the layered topography settle into memory. A pure expression of the high-ground experience—ideal when the goal is sustained elevation and long sight-lines rather than tight valley geometry. It pairs naturally with lower Kickapoo or Mississippi routes for a full day that samples both the upland and the river corridors of Crawford County. The openness of the ridges and the depth of the views are the lasting impressions. Stay high, look far, remember the layers.

How it rides

55 corners over 36.6 miles — 1.5 a mile, and 131° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-3, Spirited on the five-point curviness scale. 33% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as sweeping.

What it climbs

The road climbs 1,691 feet in total, 46 feet per mile, between 660 and 1,270 feet — 610 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 538 feet over 3.3 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 8.3%. By Driftless standards that is steep.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 20% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 80% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 49% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 23% of the miles — the median is 1,800 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 0.0 with 2,000.

Where to stop

4 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 3 fuel, 2 food, 5 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 36.5 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.

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