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This is the rider guide: the one place everything you need lives between now and the finish in Arkansas City. It is updated regularly, so check back rather than relying on an email you saved.

This guide tells you where to be, when, and with what. Where a question is already answered in full on the FAQ, we link to it so you always have complete, up-to-date information.

The Arkansas Graveler is produced by the Ozark Foundation, a nonprofit working to grow outdoor recreation and the communities it runs through. A wide group of sponsors and partners makes the week possible — event sponsors and anchor partners underwrite it, and event partners and host cities bring it to life.

The Ozark Foundation →

Sponsors and partners →

1.3

Mike Spivey

Chief Executive Officer, Ozark Foundation

I founded the Ozark Foundation in 2020 to create healthy outdoor recreation experiences across our region. The Arkansas Graveler is the fullest expression of that purpose, and this edition carries it into a part of Arkansas that has shaped the state's music, agriculture and character for generations.

We are grateful to the State of Arkansas and to the Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, whose partnership placed two state parks at the center of this route rather than alongside it. We are grateful to Jonesboro, Marianna, Helena, Wynne, Stuttgart and Arkansas City, whose leadership opened their communities to several hundred visitors.

We are grateful to the businesses, churches, musicians, volunteers and county offices across five counties who have spent months preparing for a week that will pass through each of them in a single day.

An event of this scale is never the work of the organization whose name is on it. It is the work of everyone who decided it was worth doing, and it is a privilege to bring it here.

I look forward to welcoming you in Jonesboro and sharing this experience with each of you.

1.4

Bobby Finster

Event Director and Route Architect

Thank you for coming. A week off work takes arranging, and so does the travel, and the bike box, and the conversation at home about whether this was a reasonable idea.

We have been getting ready for you for months, and we could not be more excited to share Arkansas with you.

Six towns agreed to host several hundred cyclists they have never met. Two state parks are holding ground for your tents. Cooks, musicians, church kitchens and crews across five counties have been working toward one week in October, and they are doing it because they want you to see this place properly.

What am I most looking forward to? Thursday. We will ride into Helena on the opening day of the King Biscuit Blues Festival, which has been running since 1986 and is one of the oldest blues festivals in the country.

You will get there with 3 days of riding still in your legs and walk straight into it. Almost nobody arrives that way, and the opening day has one of the best lineups ever.

All you have to do is get to Jonesboro.

We have the rest of it, and we can't wait to see you.

The Arkansas Graveler happens because of the organizations below. Event sponsors and anchor partners underwrite the week; event partners run the aid stations, the music, the shuttles and everything else you will touch between Jonesboro and Arkansas City. When a sponsor has a presence on course or in camp this week, we will point to it from the day pages.