RAGBRAI 2025: The end is near, but you'll have to work for it on Day 7

RAGBRAI DAY 7 ROUTE

Oelwein to Guttenberg

MILEAGE

62.5

ELEVATION GAIN

2,429 feet

HIGHLIGHTS

RAGBRAI 2025 is not going to let riders off easy. The final ride is more than 60 miles and contains nearly a quarter of the week's total elevation gain. And most of that gain comes in the final two-thirds of the ride, before a brake-burning plunge into the ending town of Guttenberg.

But as is the case on most of RAGBRAI's more challenging rides, there are plenty of towns along the way to help break up the journey. Stanley, the breakfast town, has barely 80 people, but one of them is a man of great stature: the Stanley Tin Man, whom riders will pass on the way in. The apparent product of a creative welder with time to burn and a spare fuel tank laying around, the 20-foot-tall Wizard of Oz-inspired figure towers above the surrounding farmland, oil can in hand and, on his rusty chest, a heart and the town's name.

Aurora, the next stop, is enthusiastically proud of its town museum, housed in a 130-year-old building that was long the home of a hardware store. "This IS the best small town museum you'll ever find," the town declares in a post on its RAGBRAI Facebook page. If museums aren't your thing, the Little Blessings Bakery offers yet another chance for pie.

Want your ride to end with a bang? Lamont has you covered with Betty Boom's Fireworks. And if you skipped breakfast earlier, the fire department has breakfast bowls.

Dundee's highlight is the spectacular, patriotic barn-side mural on the way out of town. You're now entering one of the most topographically varied sections of Iowa, the Silurian Escarpment. An example 2 miles south of town is in Backbone State Park, named for the Devil's Backbone ridge over the Maquoketa River, the highest point in northeast Iowa.

Take note of that word: highest. Edgewood, just shy of 7 miles past Dundee, is the high point of Saturday's ride, at 1,165 feet elevation. But it is far from the last height you'll be scaling, so you may want to refuel at Karl's Grocery, which the local population stepped up to save when it appeared endangered amid pandemic disruptions. Before you dig in, take a turn on the town's mechanical bull, best experienced on an empty stomach.

Now starts the rollercoaster ride. You'll lose more than 500 feet of elevation on the way to Garber. But then you'll gain all of it back and more in a series of dips and rises. The thrill ride ends with a close to 400-foot drop to Guttenberg on the Mississippi River.

It's pronounced GUT-tenberg, like your midriff's protuberance after a week of RAGBRAI food and beer, and it's been 11 years since the town last served as the ride's end point. You'll wonder why when you see its mid-19th-century limestone buildings arrayed along the Mississippi riverfront, complemented by public sculptures.

The tire dip site is on the far southern end of town, also the location of the food vendors. But continue up River Park Drive and you'll encounter a good selection of restaurants, bars and even the Guttenberg Brewing Co., as well as antique and gift stores.

See you next year!

FORECAST

Mid 80s. Some chance of showers. Definite chance of more headwind.

ENTERTAINMENT

DJ at the dip site.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: RAGBRAI 2025 Day 7: Rollercoaster ride caps off ride's 2025 edition