RAGBRAI Reveals 2025 Route, The First To Leave Iowa

Iowa's most famous bicycle ride will look different this year.

The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (known by everyone as RAGBRAI) always goes across the state of Iowa. Every year it has different stops in different towns. If you were in Davenport the weekend RAGBRAI 50 ended (the same weekend as the Bix), you remember the party.

And now, RAGBRAI's route for 2025 has been revealed and it definitely looks different.

This year, the path will go from Orange City to Guttenberg, but take a close look at the map RAGBRAI shared revealing the route. Notice anything in the second day of the race?

Yep, this year's RAGBRAI route cuts into Minnesota, just for a few miles, making it the first RAGBRAI to leave the state of Iowa at all.

According to the Des Moines Register, cyclists will ride 15 miles in Minnesota before cutting back down to Iowa. Riders will turn east on Minnesota Highway 4, get to Brown Park (in Jackson County, Minnesota), then turn south on Minnesota 25 to come back into Iowa.

The idea of letting the route leave Iowa came from Tour de France's recent change-up of starting locations, which have been Denmark, Spain, and Italy.

This is the first time in RAGBRAI's 52 years that the race has left the state of Iowa. Apparently, this was already going to be one of the shortest RAGBRAI's on record, so the hope was to extend it a bit.

The ride will be July 19-July 26 this year, with a theme of "Take Flight".