How much of this will be on dedicated bike paths, how much is bike lanes on car roads? The former is way more pleasant than the latter.
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The portion I've ridden in Iowa (Marshalltown to Woodward) was a mix. Roughly 50% dedicated trail, 25% on-road lanes, and 25% "the trail is just gone, use your GPS to find the next segment". It's a lot of packed gravel as well, not paved.
I had no idea it was going to be part of something bigger. At least on that portion, it's not nearly as complete as the official map suggests.
Rails to trails are (as the name would suggest) taking unused railroad lines and paving them over as dedicated bike paths.
They’re kind of boring sometimes due to the even grading, but they are dedicated bike paths.
The unpaved bits where they tore up the track but left the rock are 'challenging' to ride. Even for an experienced off road rider. The best I ever managed was about 2 miles of it. The paved bits you can go for a decently long time. Just be aware some portions are 10-20 miles with nothing really in between but farm fields, so plan accordingly.
I regularly bike on two of these in my are and can confirm that they are very boring over long distances, not to mention being unpaved and therefore a bit slow.
Still, I'll take them over any but the most rural of roads.