The RAGBRAI map and pass-through town list was not unveiled until April (a first) and on a weekday (another first). It ran in the Des Moines Register both online and in print on April 4 (and was off the website’s front page completely by the 7th).
A deeper analysis of the route will come later, but there’s one error in the story that jumps out immediately: St. Marys is not a first-time town. It was a pass-through town in 1991, 1992, and 2009.
I happen to know the Register’s source material intimately, and I also have the maps to prove it.
I have a theory that feels perhaps too obvious. The official name for St. Marys does not have an apostrophe. A search for “St. Mary’s”, with an apostrophe, returns zero results on both my list and the Register database. A search for “Mary” returns the three hits.
There are at least two map errors as well: Shields should be for County Road H43 (not IA 43) between Libertyville and Fairfield, and County Road X99 (not IA 99) in Des Moines County.