2026 RAT 1000 and Mini RAT

The RAT 1000 is a continuous mixed-surface ride across Texas, running from Texarkana on the Arkansas border to Tucumcari, New Mexico, on Route 66. It has run every year since 2014 and links East Texas pine woods, North Texas ranch country, Panhandle red roads, the High Plains, and the Llano Estacado. Riders can treat it as a hard ultra-endurance time trial, a nine-day group stage ride, or a shorter Mini RAT outing on any portion of the route. Club Spinistry members ride for free, giving the event a local gravel-club feel alongside a formal race feel. The full route begins with city streets and gravel out of Texarkana, then uses parts of the Northeast Texas Trail toward Paris. From there it moves through the Cross Timbers toward Gainesville, opens into ranch land between Gainesville and Vernon, climbs toward Silverton as the country shifts into High Plains terrain, and finishes west across the Llano Estacado into Tucumcari. The self-supported ITT follows Tour Divide-style rules, with live tracking required and no private support except Trail Angels during Group Depart week. The stage option is built around scheduled daily stops and group riding, with camaraderie carrying more weight than cut-offs. The Mini RAT exists for riders who want the same route without committing to the full thousand-mile crossing. The organizers’ early experiments leaned on state parks and rail trails, but they later learned that trail conditions can be unpredictable and that state parks are not always the easiest places to resupply.