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Lead Country Circuit

Lead Country Circuit is 72.1 miles of loop riding through Grant County in Wisconsin — Coulee Region, the coulees, ridge tops and river bluffs of south-west wisconsin. Moving time is about 85 minutes; allow 125 with stops — a full day. It is scored CS-1, Cruiser: 64 corners, 155° of turning per mile, 3,444 feet of climbing. The roads it uses, in the order you ride them, are in the app.

Curviness
CS-1Cruiser · 0.89/mi
Distance
72.1 mi85 min riding
Corners
6450% sharp · Tight
Climbing
3,444 ft48 ft/mi · Steep
Shape
LoopFull day
Roads
98% back road2% state or US route
Traffic
Not countedno state counts on these roads
Speed limit
55 mphtypically 55
Open this route in the app

About this road

Lead country. Around Platteville the discovery of lead in the 1820s created a mining boom; most of the lead was worked out by 1850, though zinc was still being taken into the twentieth century. The route runs through Lancaster and Potosi on the way. It is the route runs through Lancaster and Potosi, and stays almost entirely off the state highways — 98 per cent of it is county and local road. It rates CS-1 because seventy-two miles spread the turning thin, not because the country is easy: the climbing here is steep.

How it rides

64 corners over 72.1 miles — 0.89 a mile, and 155° of turning for every mile ridden. That scores CS-1, Cruiser on the five-point curviness scale. 50% of those corners are sharp ones, and the road reads as tight.

What it climbs

The road climbs 3,444 feet in total, 48 feet per mile, between 616 and 1,125 feet — 509 feet of relief. The longest single climb is 291 feet over 1 miles, and the steepest grade on it is 12.8%. For this country that is steep.

Surface, speed and traffic

Paved end to end. 98% of it is back road rather than highway, the other 2% state or US route. Posted speeds run to 55 mph, typically 55, measured across 4% of the route. State traffic counts cover only 6% of these miles, too little to put a number on, which is itself a fair sign of how quiet they are.

Where to stop

2 of the towns on this road have somewhere to stop — 4 fuel, 1 bars.

Longest stretch without fuel: 72.1 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.

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 NASA SRTM, traffic from the state transport department where counts exist.

Nearby roads