A New Challenge for 2026
If you haven’t been living under a rock, you know that RAGBRAI LIII will feature the America 250 Double Loop. The Double Loop will give riders the option of extending their ride on Thursday, July 23rd to 250km to honor the United States of America’s 250th anniversary happening this year. Yes, it will be 250 km instead of 250 miles because quite frankly, 250 miles is just too long.
About 7 miles before riders enter Independence, those choosing to do the America 250 Double Loop and the Karras Loop (century ride) will make a right hand turn to extend their ride. When the Karras Loop riders take a right to start heading back, those choosing to ride the 250km will continue straight. They will then do that longer loop once again, hitting Jesup three separate times, before finally finishing in Independence.
So you want to ride the Double Loop…
With the announcement of the loop, there are lots of you who are excited about the challenge of riding that far, but are wondering how to possibly train for it. That’s where my expertise comes in! As an endurance coach, I help athletes every day train for things they never thought they were capable of, including long bike rides, ultramarathons, and Ironmans.
How to train for the 250k Ride
There are three main factors, in my opinion, that will determine your success on the 250k route: ride time in training, nutrition, and attitude.
Build your base: Time in the saddle
No matter if you are a world tour cyclist or a recreational weekend cyclist, 250k is a long way to ride. Not to mention that the one day of 250k is in the middle of a week of riding. To prepare to ride that far, you need to spend a lot of time in the saddle in the months leading up to the ride.
Your workouts don’t need to be anything fancy unless you want them to be. The most important thing is just to be on your bike pushing the pedals. I recommend choosing two days each week where you are doing longer rides back to back. I’m talking a 100 mile ride on Saturday followed by a 60 mile ride on Sunday and doing this at least a couple of times before the ride. This will help prepare your body, including your nether regions, to handle the demands of the distance.
I also advise trying to do at least some of your longer riding faster than 15mph. The RAGBRAI Route will be open an extra hour on this day, opening at 5am and staying open until 6PM (please note that if you are starting at 5am, you MUST have a front and rear light on your bike). If you are riding at 15mph, you will cover the distance in about 10 hours 40 minutes. If you start right at 5AM, that gives you 2hr 20 mins to stop to sit down to have a meal, refill those bottles, rehydrate, and hit the restroom.
I highly advise against doing America’s Double Loop if you have never completed a century ride. The Karras Loop is a great alternative if you want a new challenge and haven’t done a 100 mile ride before.
Fuel your ride: Nutrition matters
The second key to your success in completing the America’s Double Loop is to properly fuel it. Almost everybody who is doing the loop will be riding for over 7 hours. That is A LOT of calories/carbs you are going to burn. Think of carbs as energy. The more you burn, the less energy you have. To keep the energy high enough to complete the ride, you need to replenish those energy stores.
Eating your everyday breakfast and lunch will not be enough to keep you feeling good and leave you feeling good and ready to ride the next day. You need to supplement the calories and carbs. There are numerous ways to do this including eating whole foods, using drink mixes, or downing gels. Personally, I mostly fuel through high carb drink mixes. I hate chewing while biking and the mixes give me a tasty way to get my calories in while avoiding chewing.
When I ride long, I make sure to always have at least two bottles on my bike – one of my carbs + electrolyte mix and one of plain water. I will then put extra packets or plastic bags of my carb mix and electrolyte mix in my back pocket for when my bottle is empty and it is time to refill.
At a moderate intensity, which is where I guess most of you will be riding, I suggest aiming for 50-60g of carbs per hour. No matter what products you are using to get these carbs in, I recommend trying it a few times in training to make sure it doesn’t give you GI issues while riding.
Stay strong mentally: Attitude is everything
The third key to success is going to be your attitude towards the distance. You will be on your bike for a long time if I haven’t already made that abundantly clear. It would be shocking if you went the whole time feeling great and jolly. However, when your thoughts do begin to steer negative, how you address them becomes important.
Complaining the whole time does nothing and probably will annoy those around you if you are riding with others. Instead of complaining, you either want to address or reframe depending on what the complaint is. If your thoughts are about how your chafing, put on some more chamois butter. If you have a headache, eat some food or drink some water. I always like to take in some caffeine when I’m being negative (not sure if there’s any science there, but I think it helps).
When it comes to reframing, I always like to change my way of thinking to “How lucky am I that I have the opportunity to do this? How lucky am I that I have a body that is capable of doing this?”. After having more surgeries than I care to count, I know how fortunate I am to be back doing what I love (riding my bike). Not everybody can do that. The more gratitude you can bring into the ride, the more joy you will have riding and the greater the chance of success of completing it.
See you on the road!
We look forward to seeing you on RAGBRAI LIII! Ride lots, fuel up, and have fun.
Erin Oliphant
RAGBRAI
Find All 2025 Training Blogs
Find all of Coach Oliphant and Coach Ertl’s Training Blogs, as well as the 2025 Training Plan in our Training section on RAGBRAI.com.
Coach Erin Oliphant
Coach Erin Oliphant has been passionately coaching endurance sports for the past 10 years. In addition to coaching, Erin also works for RAGBRAI full-time in customer service. You can find out more about her accomplishments and Coaching Programs here: https://erin-oliphant.com/
