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Kickapoo Valley Run: Ontario to Gays Mills

Kickapoo Valley Run: Ontario to Gays Mills is 38.1 miles of point-to-point riding through Vernon and Crawford Counties in Wisconsin — the Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west Wisconsin. Moving time is about 46 minutes; allow 65 with stops — a half morning. It is scored CS-4, Twisty: 64 corners, 132° of turning per mile, 1,565 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-4Twisty · 1.68/mi
Distance
38.1 mi46 min riding
Corners
6444% sharp · Mixed
Climbing
1,565 ft41 ft/mi · Hilly
Shape
Point-to-pointHalf morning
Roads
Highway miles1% county & local
Traffic
1,200vehicles a day, median
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

The Kickapoo River—“one who goes here, then there” in Algonquin—meanders so persistently that it travels roughly twice the straight-line distance from headwaters to mouth. This point-to-point follows one of Wisconsin’s most celebrated canoe and scenery corridors through the Kickapoo Valley. Cold-water tributaries and the main stem support excellent trout habitat; decades of restoration work have improved both the fishery and public access. The valley is also archaeologically rich, with rock shelters and sites spanning thousands of years. Combining the ride with a short paddle or at least a riverside stop joins the road experience to the water that organizes the entire landscape. Honest climbing and continuous scenic interest rather than extreme technical demand. A pure expression of the Kickapoo’s intimate scale—ideal when the goal is to stay close to one of the region’s defining rivers throughout the day. Follow the Kickapoo that can’t decide which way to go. The scenery never argues.

How it rides

64 corners over 38.1 miles — 1.68 a mile, and 132° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-4, Twisty on the five-point curviness scale. 44% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as mixed.

What it climbs

The road climbs 1,565 feet in total, 41 feet per mile, between 701 and 990 feet — 289 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 138 feet over 0.5 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 9.1%. By Driftless standards that is hilly.

Surface, speed and traffic

99.0% paved; the odd short stretch is gravel or seal coat. 1% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 99% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 12% of the route. Where traffic counts exist — 34% of the miles — the median is 1,200 vehicles a day, busiest at mile 26.0 with 3,500.

Where to stop

6 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 6 fuel, 5 food, 5 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 12.3 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.

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