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While biking across this great country, Mike Mann and Carolyn Hall finally found us, I mean to find Art, the founder of PROBAR.  But they had to wait until Idaho, and a town I’ve never heard of.  (They started in MA).

If only they would have found Art and PROBAR in Ohio, orPA.  Regarless, they found us and had a tale to tell.   We’re just glad to have been with them for the last stretch to Oregon.

It all began in Kooskia Idaho, in isle 4 at the local grocery store. A friendly-lookin’ guy came up to us and asked if we were cyclists, to which we replied looking down at our ridiculously silly looking outfits, “Yep, we’re riding across the country.”

“ Have you guys ever heard of Probar?” he asked.  Well we hadn’t up to that point, and had been snacking mostly on gas-station donuts and cheese ‘product’ crackers.

He looked at us mildly surprised. “Oh man. These things are full of awesome raw food.” Being the label readers we are (or should we say, used to be before this trip) we asked what was in them.

“Well… they have organic rolled oats, organic brown rice syrup, organic raisins, organic dates, organic raw sunflower seeds, organic almond butter, organic cashew butter, organic raw coconut, carob chips, raw cashews, organic rolled rye, organic brown flax seeds, strawberries…” He continued to list all the ingredients verbatim.  ”By the way, my name is Art, the Founder of Probar.” He said smiling.

After talking for a while, Art went out to his truck and gave us a whole pile of bars to take with us on the rest of our journey. We rather gleefully took them and tucked them away in our panniers.

These tasty bars were especially helpful going through the Columbia River Gorge (west-bound) where we were battling 15 to 35 mile an hour headwinds for several days.

Without them we probably would have been totally exhausted, run down or weeping by the side of the road. In the end we were extremely grateful that we had run into Art at the little grocery store in Kooskia, Idaho.

Check out some of these images from their ride.  Hopefully Mike or Carolyn will chime in with a comment about their home-made “Broken Bike” sign and the adventure that followed.

Each customer whose “Your PROBAR Story” is published here on the blog will receive a Seventh Heaven Pack which is one PROBAR of each of the original flavors. We love to hear from our customers about their PROBAR story so if you’ve got one share it with us.