Monday is arrival day. Leave your car in long-term parking, collect your packet at The Forum, spin your legs out if you want them loose, and come to Main Street in the evening. Nothing about Monday is difficult, but the rider meeting is where the week's ground rules are set, so plan to be at one of the two sessions.

The day, hour by hour

Schedule

Everything with a time on it.

Time	What	Where	Who
12:00 PM	Long-term parking opens	Arkansas State University, Centennial Bank Arena	—
2:00 PM	Shakeout rides	Crowley's Ridge State Park, or a slow roll through town	—
3:00–7:00 PM	Packet pickup	The Forum on Main	—
4:00 PM	Rider meeting, first session	The Forum	—
5:30 PM	Rider meeting, second session	The Forum	—
5:00–8:00 PM	Meet Me on Main, the opening party	Main Street	—
5:00–8:00 PM	Pop-ups: Delta Dirt, TC Screenprinting merch, Arkansas Tourism	Gearhead	—

The town · Host town

Jonesboro

Where the hills stop and the Delta begins.

What it is now

Jonesboro runs on healthcare, education and manufacturing. St. Bernards Healthcare employs more than five thousand people here. Arkansas State University employs another three thousand, and it is where you park, gather and roll out. NEA Baptist, Hytrol Conveyor, Frito-Lay and Nestlé account for thousands more between them, and Riceland Foods has been processing this region's rice here since 1930.

The arc underneath those numbers is worth knowing before you form an opinion about the Delta. Jonesboro had 155 residents in 1870 and 4,508 in 1900. It passed twenty-one thousand by 1960 and seventy-eight thousand by 2020. It is the largest city in northeast Arkansas and it is still growing.

You start at the top of Crowley's Ridge, in the last town before the country flattens out.

The ridge is the reason the town is here

Jonesboro sits on Crowley's Ridge, which the Encyclopedia of Arkansas describes as a crescent-shaped rise and the highest point in northeast Arkansas. That elevation is why a settlement held here at all: the ridge kept the town above water that regularly covered the country around it.

You will spend most of Tuesday getting off it. Close to a third of the week's total climbing happens in those first hours, which is why day one looks like the hard day when you read the profile. It is not the hard day. It is the last real elevation you will see until Sunday.

Eat and drink

Skinny J's, 205 S Main St — Open Monday. On Main, a short walk from The Forum and from the party.
Omar's Uptown, 301 S Main St — Opens at four. Steaks, two dining floors.
The Parsonage, 305 S Main St — Southern, and it closes at five, so this is a lunch stop if you get in early.

If you have an hour

The Forum, 115 E Monroe Ave — You are picking up your packet in a movie house built in 1926 as the Strand.
Gearhead Outfitters, 230 S Main St — Ted Herget started it in a friend's living room in Jonesboro in 1997. It is eighteen stores now and still headquartered on this street. The pop-ups are here.
The Hattie Caraway marker, A-State campus — Caraway was the first woman elected to the US Senate, in 1932. She raised her family in Jonesboro and is buried at Oaklawn Cemetery here. The Arkansas 250 Commission put the marker up in March 2026. Exact campus location — coming soon.

City of Jonesboro →Tour Jonesboro →Downtown Jonesboro Alliance →

Off the bike

After you finish

Everything on the schedule once the day's formalities are done.

Time	What	Where	Who
5:00–8:00 PM	Meet Me on Main, the opening party	Main Street	—
5:00–8:00 PM	Pop-ups: Delta Dirt, TC Screenprinting merch, Arkansas Tourism	Gearhead	—

If something goes wrong

Weather and medical

We ride in rain. If lightning is near we shelter, and every host location has a designated indoor space for weather that turns serious.

Medical: UAMS is on site. They can assist immediately and connect you to any local hospital or emergency services as necessary.