Category: Golden Gravel – 2026

Bob and I did our best to eat one of everything for breakfast at Leon’s Diner but we stashed part of the extra large pancakes into some baggies in case we wanted it later.

The paved downhill highway out of … Read the rest

Sometimes I say “I get endorphins and a view”. Sometimes I say “because it feels good when you stop”.

For Bob and I, it was the last tough ride of our tour. We got an early start at 6:50am to … Read the rest

No, not the one in Montecito – the road we biked down next to the South Fork of Boise River. It had at least 10 hot springs. We stopped at two of them. Brent stopped at five. It was a … Read the rest

We left the luxury Baumgartner campground with its water faucet and picnic table to the primative Phifer Hot Springs but first we had to get over another pass. It was

We rode through the historical mining camp called Smoky Bar. … Read the rest

We rode uphill for 2700ft but it was even more downhill. The pass is called “Dollarhide” – that’s an odd name. I’ll have to research that later.

Smoky Bar Store (no “e”) placed lots of signs on our road including … Read the rest

We all agreed that we really liked Ketchum so it was hard to leave.

The motel breakfast was fancy – they had real plates, cups, and metal forks. We charged all our gizmos and headed downtown to do shopping and … Read the rest

We were surprised to wake up to cold weather (low 40s) and our hands became numb while we packed.

I wore my down jacket and pants for the uphill start of our ride and before you know it my hands … Read the rest

Just before we were leaving our Cherry Creek campsite, two riders rode down the trail in the opposite direction. These are the first riders we’ve seen and the first on our same route. Sarah and Tim are from Cleveland OH. … Read the rest

By the time we packed up, The Pickle Place was open so we had our third meal there. Brent wasn’t very hungry so he decided to try a pickle popsicle. He gave it a thumbs up.

We rode through a … Read the rest

879 to be exact. This was big and active compared to Atomic City.

We left our camp in Atomic City before sunrise to beat the heat and rode 13 miles to the nice highway rest stop where we made our … Read the rest

One mile from edge of highway 26 is a little town called Atomic City. We had to go there since we couldn’t ride all the way to Arco which is 60 miles in this heat.

Nowadays they are known for … Read the rest

We left the cows to their grazing and pedaled up and down the gorges to the river. It was a hot day so we used all the water we filtered.

We saw a badger in his burrow and he carefully … Read the rest

We bought some food at Mike’s Market in Lava Hot Springs and chowed down a breakfast at Chuck Wagon Restaurant. The name brought back 1970s memories of our family eating at the Chuck Wagon restaurant “all you can eat buffet” … Read the rest

We said thank you and goodbye to our nice host Daphne and ventured into the farms and forests again.

At one of the remote homesteads, a local asked Bob and I for help pushing their stalled ATV (UTV) onto a … Read the rest

We bought some food at the market in Montpelier and headed out of town. The brand new Mormon temple wasn’t here when Brent met us on our 2022 bike trip. In fact it isn’t even open until later this year.… Read the rest