RAGBRAI 2022 route map overnight towns

This summer’s RAGBRAI will cut across Northern Iowa, starting in Sergeant Bluff along the Missouri River and ending about 430 miles later in Lansing along the Mississippi River.

In an announcement late Friday night, the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa identified the overnight towns where riders will spend the night along the way: Ida Grove, Pocahontas, Emmetsburg, Mason City, Charles City and West Union.

All of the overnight towns on the route have hosted RAGBRAI at least once before — except Pocahontas, which will mark its first. An announcement of the pass-through towns will come later.

This year’s ride — the 49th in the history of the ride, which attracts cyclists from around the country — is July 23-30 and is dedicated to co-founder John Karras. Karras and Donald Kaul, both Des Moines Register columnists, founded the ride in 1973. Kaul died in 2018 and Karras died in November.

In memory of Karras, one day on the route will stretch to 100 miles — from Emmetsburg to Mason City, the Des Moines Register reported.

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This year’s route will have about 11,900 feet of climb. It will be RAGBRAI’s 11th-shortest ride and 18th-flattest.

Registration is open for the ride and is available on a first-come, first-served basis at RAGBRAI.com. Early registration for the week is $175 through Feb. 28, and later registration, which closes April 1, is $190. Day passes also are available.

Registration was previously determined by a lottery, but RAGBRAI officials changed that method in November.

About 15,000 riders are expected.

Sisters Anastasia (left), 8, and Elaina Kendall, 7, of Center Point hand out free water to riders as they pass by on Central City Road in Alice on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

Steve Lawrence of Central City stands in his front yard to spray RAGBRAI riders with water to cool them down as his bare-eyed cockatoo, Leuchen, rests on his shoulder in Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. Lawrence took the day off work and had a few friends over to watch riders pass by and help them however he could as they passed down his street on their way out of town. (The Gazette)

RAGBRAI riders leave Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

A RAGBRAI rider passes by a mural in Anamosa on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

RAGBRAI rider Tanya Zielinski of Grapevine, Texas, cools off in a sprinkler set up on Main Street in Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

RAGBRAI riders leave Center Point on Central City Road on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

RAGBRAI riders pass down Main Street in Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

RAGBRAI riders pass by grain bins beyond a cornfield in Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

A sign at the United Church of Christ welcomes RAGBRAI riders in Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

RAGBRAI riders line up for food and drinks while stopped at F.B. & Company outside of Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

RAGBRAI rider J.D. Peiffer of St. Louis splashes through a slip-n-slide set up in Center Point on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

A group of RAGBRAI riders stop and sit by the Wapsipinicon River at F.B. & Company outside of Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (Andy Abeyta/The Gazette)

Siblings Nolan, 5, and Harper Mae Pecinovsky, 2, of Coggon, play in the water running down the street from the a sprinkling set up to cool off RAGBRAI riders in Central City on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)

Elaina Kendall, 7, of Central City holds up a bottle of water to be handed out to passing RAGBRAI riders in Alice on Thursday, July 29, 2021. (The Gazette)