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Bergman and Company Bike Idaho

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Bergman and Company Bike Idaho

Written by Kevin Bergman

Monday, 01 September 2003

Article Index
Bergman and Company Bike Idaho
The Fun Continues
More Adventures!
All Good Things Must End

Page 4 of 4

Day 10

Howie and I started the day out with a trip to Starbucks since The Bagel Place wasnt open. We then headed over to catch the 8:30 service at the local Presbyterian church. The plan was to take an easy flat spin since our legs were pretty much all wet noodles. Dave was also having issues with his hinny being sore, so he decided to bail and go fishing. We headed out to a loop above Stanley, about an hour and half from the condo. There was quite the haze along the mountains and we werent sure what the deal was but were afraid it may be due to wildfires.

day 10 1.jpg

The temperature was beautiful, never getting above 80 for the whole ride. The trail started out flat, and stayed that way for about the next 5 miles. We covered that in less than a half hour as it was another ATV type track, quite the contrast to the close to 3 hours five miles took us two days before. At the first intersection, we checked out the map and saw that this particular trail to our right, Prospect Creek, seemed to go out for a good distance and looked to be really nice single track. Since it seemed that if we stayed the course on the ATV trail, we’d be done in about two hours total, we decided to go explore this Prospect creek. It was quite a nice singletrack, some of the short uphill’s were pretty chewed up from motorcycles, but all in all a lot of fun. We went out a couple miles when Aaron broke a spoke.

day 10 2.jpg

After some trueing, he got it so it at least wouldn’t hit the frame or brakes. We kept up Prospect for another mile or so when Aaron had some more issues so after an adjustment, we decided to head back. Once back on our original course, we continued around the loop. After a bit of pretty easy climbing, we hit Knapp creek trail and took that down to the gravel road, about 5 miles. Our nickname for it was the race course, as it was really fast, but still challenging enough to keep you on your toes. I had a pretty close call with some loose trail on a slight turn at a pretty good rate of speed. Luckily I was able to get the front wheel turned to over correct for the slide and slowed down enough to do a running bailout. The bike went down but I didnt and the bike was OK. Once we were on the gravel road, Steve decided he still had some leg left so he was sort of “challenging” us to race. Howie and I took turns running him down but I finally shot my load and had to let them go to fight it out to the next turn, a couple miles down the road. Eagle Eye Aaron spotted an Elk off the trail on the next section of road, and after watching it for a few minutes, we saw a second one. Their size is quite impressive. Dinner was on the deck of the Brew and Burger place in Lower Stanley. (BTW, Stanley had a population of 100, so you can imagine how big Lower Stanley is). Excellent burgers and we were literally sitting right about the Salmon river. We also had an interesting conversation with the lady at the next table, I believe she is living in Boise. She and her hubby were in the area camping with 100 of their closest friends. After dinner we could only make it about 15 – 20 minutes down the road before we stopped for shakes at the same place we had dinner after our Epic ride two days before. Speaking of the epic, Howie did find mention of the ride in our main guide book today, on the page marked multiday and adventure rides. Dave claims to have caught the biggest trout of his life today, but no fish, no pictures, and no witnesses, so you be the judge.

Day 11: Final Day

day 11 1.jpg

As our legs had seen better days at this point, we were looking for a memorable but rather easy ride. Since the Pontzer cousins hadn’t gotten to ride the Little Basin to Basin single track, my vote for the best 6 miles of single track ever, we decided to head back there, minus the gravel road stuff we had done previously. The haze along the mountains was much more pronounced today, and we had learned via some TV and internet that there were some major fires north and east of this area and the weather pattern was blowing it our way.

day 11 2.jpg

Aaron picked up a new knickname early in the ride, “shotgun” Pontzer. Dave, Steve and myself had gotten a bit out in front and heard a gun shot. We were all a little worried but continued on up the mountain. We stopped to wait for Aaron and Howie and after a few minutes started to get a bit worried so we headed back. We ran into them a short ways back down. Seems that the gun shot we heard was actually Aaron’s tire blowing out. Note to self, bring two way radios next trip. We finally all made it to the top and started the trip down a little piece of Heaven. Aaron and Dave were dually impressed with the track.

day 11 3.jpg

After a stop waiting on Aaron, we all headed back again to see what was up. Another flat, this time much quieter though. Back on the trail again, through a few beautiful and uneventful stream crossings until one caught dave’s bike and he took a bit of a swim. A right on Kelly’s creek trail started us up and out. Our last piece of single track in Idaho. A final push up a forest service road, including a couple little “races” initiated and won by Steve and we were back at the vehicles. Once back at the condo, we started the somber process of packing the bikes up for their UPS ride back home. A fine dinner at Smokey Mountain Pizza and Pasta topped of the night. 5am is going to come way too soon to start our journey back home.

Visit Bergman's complete photo gallery of the trip.

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