What to know about the towns on RAGBRAI's 2024 journey through southern Iowa
From the birthplace of actor John Wayne in Winterset to the mecca of sprint car racing in Knoxville, RAGBRAI 2024 will let riders experience the rustic charm of southern Iowa.
The route of the 51st edition of the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, announced Saturday, will extend 424 miles from Glenwood to Burlington, with stops in Red Oak, Atlantic, Winterset, Knoxville, Ottumwa and Mount Pleasant. It will be the first southern Iowa route in five years.
Here is what to know about the beginning, ending and overnight towns on the July 21-27 ride.
Glenwood
Population: 5,245.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: starting town in 1980, 1984, 1989, 1992, 2003, 2011 and 2016.
Located about 25 miles southeast of Omaha, Nebraska, Glenwood's city motto is "The Best of Both Worlds" ― urban and rural. It sits in Iowa's Loess Hills, which formed more than 25,000 years ago when a glacier retreated, leaving behind silt that piled up in the Missouri River valley.
The fine, yellow-clay loess soil is found mainly in the Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas Loess region, north central Europe and eastern China, according to Iowa PBS. Unfortunately for RAGBRAIers, the hills made up of loess are as abundant as they are scenic, providing a strenuous start to what's billed as a RAGBRAI with record elevation gain.
Keg Creek Brewing Co., named for the Missouri River tributary that runs through Glenwood, is sure to be a popular spot for the gathering riders the day before the cross-state journey begins.
Red Oak
Population: 5,282.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: overnight town in 1976, 1986, 1997 and 2009.
Red Oak is the childhood home of U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. She famously worked the morning shift making biscuits at a local Hardee's fast food restaurant to pay for college. Red Oak also was briefly home to the late "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson, who was born in nearby Corning.
In 2016, Red Oak resident Ernie Smith set a Guinness World Record when he was deemed the oldest active pilot in the world on his 99th birthday.
Red Oak has a proud if somber military heritage. Unlike most Iowa county seat towns, it was built not around a courthouse but a 1927 fountain whose three dozen spigots commemorate the 36 Montgomery County servicemen who died in World War I. Red Oak residents also were disproportionately represented among Iowa's casualties in the Civil War and, according to Leo Landis, state curator at the State Historical Society of Iowa, soldiers from the region numbered heavily in the 311 Iowans who went missing in the World War II Battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia.
In August 2021, Cpl. Daegan William-Tyeler Page, a Red Oak native, was among 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing attack at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.
Atlantic
Population: 6,758.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: overnight town in 1974, 1980, 1989, 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2019.
Atlantic is known as the Coca-Cola capital of Iowa. The Atlantic Bottling Co., founded in 1905, started bottling Coca-Cola in 1915 and now distributes to all of Iowa and parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri.
It still bottles products at its Atlantic plant. But the company also has offices in Des Moines, Walcott and Ottumwa. The town celebrates Coca Cola Days each fall, and until the COVID-19 pandemic even had a Coke museum.
Winterset
Population: 5,385.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: overnight town in 1991 and 2019, pass-through town in 1997.
Winterset was the birthplace of actor Marion Morrison, better known by his stage name: John Wayne. He was born in Winterset but grew up in Southern California.
Just off the town square is the John Wayne Birthplace Museum. Opened in 2015, the museum contains artifacts and memorabilia from his life.
Read more about Winterset: Ben Franklin store era comes to an end, Winterset owners to retire after 44 years in business
Winterset also is the seat of Madison County, as in "The Bridges of." You can bet that the ride through the county will take RAGBRAI past some of the famous covered bridges that drew the novel's photographer protagonist, Robert Kincaid. Clint Eastwood famously played him in the 1995 movie, filmed in part in Winterset. Co-star Meryl Streep earned one of her seemingly countless Academy Award nominations.
RAGBRAI has a way of helping towns overcoming tragedies. That will certainly be an opportunity for Winterset. On March 5, 2022, an EF4 tornado killed six people in a neighborhood about 3 miles southwest of the city.
Winterset's leaders and RAGBRAI's organizers have talked about ways to showcase the town's resilience, said RAGBRAI Ride Director Matt Phippen.
"With anything that RAGBRAI does when you partner with these communities it truly shows how strong communities are," Phippen said. "It's a community that is beautiful. There's tons of things to offer there."
'Stronger than before': 4 family members killed by Winterset tornado remembered as 'full of life'
Knoxville
Population: 7,158.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: overnight town in 1991, 2000 and 2013, pass-through town in 1988 and 1992.
Racing is as much a part of Knoxville as corn is a part of Iowa. The larger Iowa Speedway in nearby Newton is more prestigious, but Iowa’s racing heritage is firmly rooted in the dirt oval of Knoxville Raceway.
Located near the middle of town, it first hosted automobile races in 1901. Today, the half-mile track holds weekly sprint car and late-model races from late April through September. It is known as one of the premier dirt tracks in the country, and each year the national sprint car season culminates in the Knoxville Nationals, attracting some of the top drivers in racing with a $1 million purse.
The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum sits outside turn 2, displaying about 35 open-wheel race cars and telling the stories of some of the best drivers in the history of grassroots racing. Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for seniors, students and military members.
Ottumwa
Population: 25,350.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: overnight town in 1984, 2000, 2009 and 2016.
Proclaimed the Video Game Capital of the World, Ottumwa was the home of the Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard arcade, global keeper of scoring records in the early 1980s for games like Asteroids, Pac-Man and Centipede. At one point, there was even talk of building a Video Game Hall of Fame there.
The arcade is long gone, but Ottumwa was the place where California-based social media platform and video game arbiter Twin Galaxies got started.
Airplane enthusiasts can visit the Air Power Museum. Sitting on a 30-acre airfield, the 20,000-square-foot museum displays various propellers, aircraft engines, model airplanes and aviation-themed art.
Ottumwa also is the hometown of actor and comedian Tom Arnold, who for a time operated an Iowa-style loose meat sandwich shop there with then-wife Roseanne Barr.
After 28 years, Hollywood star and Iowan Tom Arnold reconnects with brother, sister — in Ottumwa
Mount Pleasant
Population: 8,982.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: Overnight town in 1975, 1984, 1992, 2003 and 2009; pass-through town in 1979.
Mount Pleasant's marquee event is the Old Threshers Reunion, which runs five days through Labor Day each year. The event started in 1950 as a celebration of old steam engines and agricultural equipment. Today the reunion attracts antique car and tractor owners from across the Midwest.
It's also a festival where big-name acts like Brad Paisley, George Strait and Johnny Cash have performed.
Mount Pleasant can probably use the lift RAGBRAI will bring. Its venerable local liberal arts college, Iowa Wesleyan University, a cornerstone of the city since the 1840s, closed in May.
Burlington
Population: 23,713.
Previous times on RAGBRAI: ending town in 1979, 1984, 1990, 2000 and 2009; overnight town in 2019.
Burlington is home to Snake Alley, a roadway constructed in 1894 to connect a residential neighborhood at the top of a bluff with a commercial area at the bottom. Paved in limestone and blue-clay bricks, Snake Alley curves seven times up a 21% grade over a distance of 275 feet, gaining 58 feet of elevation, according to the city of Burlington.
Every Memorial Day Weekend, downtown Burlington hosts the Snake Alley Criterium, a bike race that includes an ascent of Snake Alley. RAGBRAI riders with sufficient energy left over can mark the end of their ride by taking on the challenge of climbing Snake Alley, too.
Founded in 1833, Burlington, once a busy Mississippi River steamboat port, was capital of the Wisconsin Territory, then the Iowa Territory. It was the site of the first U.S. Aldi store, which opened in 1976 after the German-owned grocer bought and rebranded the locally based Benner Tea Co. supermarket chain. Now headquartered in the Chicago area, the U.S. Aldi chain still uses the Benner name for its tea.
Philip Joens has ridden RAGBRAI 18 times and completed the river-to-river trek seven times. He covers retail, real estate and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, at [email protected] or on Twitter @Philip_Joens
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Here's what to know about 2024 RAGBRAI's southern Iowa towns