As the United States marks its 250th year, RAGBRAI will celebrate with a ride that showcases the small towns at the heart of the American heartland.
Announcing the pass-through and meeting towns April 3, Ride Director Matt Phippen said the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa will seek out quintessential American experiences. That includes an America 250 day when riders bound for the suitably named overnight town of Independence will be encouraged to dress in red, white and blue and decorate their bikes likewise.
It will be a display that's sure to spark nostalgia for July 4 parades in riders' childhood hometowns. Phippen also envisions giant U.S. flags hung from grain elevators and firetruck ladders over festive Main Streets, And he said a bike-borne crew that successfully experimented with putting up flagpoles and flags at veterans' homes during RAGBRAI 2025 will expand its mission this year to include towns along the entire route.
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A bicyclist poses for a portrait as he performs the traditional
tire dip with flood water from the Missouri River at the Stir Cove
parking lot in Council Bluffs on Saturday, July 20, 2019.
JOE SHEARER, THE NONPAREIL
Don't forget Freedom Rocks. They're an Iowa thing. Every one of the state's 99 counties has at least one, each painted with a unique design by dedicated artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen.
Maybe a fireworks show, you ask? It's RAGBRAI. Anything is possible.
If riders "want to experience small-town Iowa, this is the year to do it," said Phippen, himself a native of an Iowa small town. "Every town on the route is a small town."
He said the ride will come close to, but never enter, two larger cities: Ames and Waterloo-Cedar Falls.
"You'll be able to see the water tower in Ames. That's the closest it will come," he said.
A highlight will be a visit to a place strongly associated with America's pastime and its small-town roots: the Field of Dreams complex near Dyersville. The park, serving as the Day 7 meeting town, features the cornfield baseball diamond from the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams" and the more recently built Major League Baseball park where the Philadelphia Phillies will play the Minnesota Twins in August.
Even the biggest town on the route, Dubuque, population 58,987, where the ride will conclude with its traditional Mississippi River tire dip, is the core of Iowa's smallest metro area. It's also Iowa's oldest city, a reminder that 2026 also is the 180th anniversary of Iowa's statehood.
All the towns have been on previous RAGBRAIs, but for many, it has been decades since the ride last passed through â in one case, 50 years.
"Every town we've talked to this year has been super excited to get us back," Phippen said.
For RAGBRAI old timers, more than a few of the towns — 13, to be precise, including overnight stops — debuted on SAGBRAI, the Second Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, in 1974. And 11 debuted on the 1983 ride.
The starting, ending and overnight towns on the seven-day, July 19-25 ride were announced in January. Here are the towns between them that will greet riders with parties and pie.
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RAGRBAI announces a full route for 2026 that seeks to feature
the best of small-town Iowa.
DES MOINES REGISTER
Day 1, Sunday, July 19: Onawa to Harlan
- Miles: 58.5
- Feet of climb: 3,465
- Themes: Tire Dip and Ride of Silence.
- Pass-through towns: Turin, Soldier, Earling and Westphalia
- Meeting town: Dunlap
Highlights: The day's first stop fits the small-town theme: Turin, with a population of just 72, is the smallest city on the entire route. After Soldier, riders will begin their ascent of the scenic but steep Loess Hills.
Dunlap, Earling and Westphalia haven't appeared on the ride since 1983. Earling was the scene of a reportedly well-documented 1928 exorcism that helped inspire the 1973 classic horror movie "The Exorcist."
Though All-American, Westphalia, with a population of 126, preserves its heritage as a German Catholic settlement, with the towering St. Boniface Church on the National Register of Historic Places and its German Heritage Park.
Day 2, Monday, July 20: Harlan to Guthrie Center
- Miles: 53.9
- Feet of climb: 3,554
- Theme: Thin Blue Line Appreciation Day
- Pass-through town: Elk Horn
- Meeting town: Exira
Highlights: Elk Horn, like Westphalia, provides a reminder that a common part of the American experience is being descended from people who came from somewhere else to become citizens of a new nation. It's a town with Danish heritage and a giant windmill that was built in Denmark in 1848 and imported piece by piece to the town. Volunteers reassembled it for the 1976 Bicentennial celebration.
Elk Horn also is home to the Museum of Danish America and several other imported historic structures.
Day 3, Tuesday, July 21: Guthrie Center to Boone
- Miles: 59.5
- Feet of climb: 1,503
- Theme: College Jersey Day
- Pass-through towns: Panora, Yale and Ogden
- Meeting town: Perry
Highlights: RAGBRAI will stick to the big roads, but Panora, Yale and Perry also are stops on the Raccoon River Trail, a paved, 72-mile loop that's now part of an even larger loop with the 2024 completion of a connector to the High Trestle Trail and its famous tall bridge.
Perry is a town that's taken some hard knocks â a tragic school shooting in 2024 and the loss of its largest employer, a Tyson meatpacking plant, later the same year. Yet Perry Pride still shows in its lively downtown, with the circa-1913 Hotel Pattee and one of the most unexpected watering holes in any small town. Dubbed the Proletariat, it's lined with books and stuffed animal heads and features a Charles Bukowski quote on one wall. The owner's gentle but giant Russian wolfhound, named Yeats, is often on hand to mingle with patrons.
Perry's also famous as the starting point for the Bike Ride to Rippey, or BRR, a 26-mile excursion that's been held each February since 1977, regardless of the weather.
Day 4, Wednesday, July 22: Boone to Marshalltown
- Miles: 62.2
- Feet of climb: 1,563
- Theme: I Ride 4 Day
- Pass-through towns: Gilbert, Colo and State Center
- Meeting town: Nevada
Highlights: Ames, home of Iowa State University, is the urban hub of Iowa's Story County, but Nevada â pronounced Neh-VAY-duh â is its thriving county seat, the largest of the charming Main Street towns on the Day 4 route.
Colo sits where the historic, transcontinental Lincoln and Jefferson highways cross. Niland's Cafê at their intersection is famous far and wide for its homestyle cooking and authentic, un-updated decor. Colo also was home for a time to Mountain Goats front man and horror novelist John Darnielle, whose "Universal Harvester" is set in Nevada.
Gilbert holds the distinction of being the town on this year's route that has gone the longest without a repeat RAGBRAI visit. It last hosted riders in the Bicentennial year of 1976.
State Center is known for its extensive community rose garden and annual Rose Festival and parade, held in June.
Day 5, Thursday, July 23: Marshalltown to Independence
- Miles: 81.4
- Feet of climb: 2,713
- Theme: America 250 Day
- Pass-through towns: Green Mountain, Beaman, Grundy Center, Morrison, Washburn, Gilbertville and Jesup
- Meeting town: Reinbeck
Highlights: Day 5 is the longest ride of the week, but it has plenty of towns to break up its 81.4 miles.
You'll have a hard time finding so much as a hill in Green Mountain. It was named by settlers from the Green Mountain State of Vermont and is famous as being the site â or close to the site â of a terrible train wreck in 1910 that killed 52 people.
Morrison and Reinbeck are two more towns that haven't been on the ride since 1983. The latter has a fine aquatic center for those wanting to cool off. There's even a slide. Among its most famous residents: Debra Saylor, a blind pianist who finished third in the prestigious Van Cliburn international competition in 2000. It also has a link to the Brooklyn Bridge. John Roebling, the engineer behind the renowned span over New York's East River, for a time held as an investment the land on which the town was later built, according to a town history.
Day 6, Friday, July 24: Independence to Dyersville
- Miles: 42.2
- Feet of climb: 1,441
- Theme: Team Jersey Day
- Pass-through towns: Winthrop and Earlville
- Meeting town: Manchester
Highlights: How can you tell Manchester, population 5,283, is one of the biggest non-overnight towns on the 2026 route? Its aquatic center has three slides. Enjoy! It also has one of the most impressive courthouses, with a 135-foot-tall clock tower. And there's a whitewater park on the Maquoketa River that flows through the center of town.
Day 7, Saturday, July 25: Dyersville to Dubuque
- Miles: 33.7
- Feet of climb: 1,788
- Themes: 2026 RAGBRAI Jersey Day
- Pass-through towns: Farley, Epworth and Centralia
- Meeting town: Field of Dreams
Highlights: No question about the high point of this day's ride: It's the Field of Dreams. The movie starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones was shot here, and the ballfield built by Costner's character, farmer Ray Kinsella, is its centerpiece, bordered by corn that will be higher than an elephant's eye by late July. Will the ghost players make an appearance?
Riders, while enjoying this breakfast stop, also will get to take a look at the field MLB built for the occasional pro games it has hosted here beginning in 2021. The coming of the big league brought construction of a paved road to the site, which allows it to make its RAGBRAI debut.
John Karras Century Loop/gravel sections
The optional loop that brings the day's mileage to 100 for those who choose to ride it is marking its 40th year as a RAGBRAI feature. It's named for RAGBRAI co-founder John Karras, who until he died in 2021 at age 91 handed out commemorative patches to everyone who completed the optional stretch. Its location and those of the also-optional gravel routes â an annual feature of RAGBRAI for five years â will be announced in May.
RAGBRAI registration is open. Sign up at ragbrai.com/registration.
