I did this ride 3 or 4 years ago and, though it is a tough ride for me,
it is one of the best run and most beautiful I have ever done.
Thanks for putting it on.
Jeffrey Shopoff
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Great event and well supported.
Paul Coletta
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Ed and I really enjoyed the ride yesterday! What a well-run event,
with the friendliest volunteers and most delicious food, not to mention
the spectacular views and challenging terrain. It was awesome.
Heidi Hugo
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BOB was the best organized ride I have ever done. The climbs
were perfectly spaced. We had already done two before I
realized we were climbing. Also, the fact that I could go up
Sierra Road after all those miles was a testament to how well you
guys designed the route. I especially liked that each rest
stop had different yummy food and that much of it was homemade.
Thanks so much! I'll be back and I'll definitely tell my
friends.
Ellyn Roberts
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It was a great ride. The only minor complaint is that some of the
distances on the turn by turn sheet were slightly off. I did the short
BOB, the Heyer Ave turn on Castro Valley and the S. Grimmer Ave in Fremont
both came considerably earlier than expected. I managed to follow the
sheet OK.
I look forward to doing it again next year.
Kurt Giles
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Across the board, I would rate this as an outstanding ride. Although
I have ridden through parts of the East Bay before, I didn't have a feel
for the scope of the landscape nor the breadth of cycling opportunities
until I did the ride on Saturday. I have a new appreciation about how
beautiful it is.
The course was laid out very well, including the position and timing of
Sierra Road. The written course material gave me a sense of the road
conditions on climbs and descents, although I didn't get too focused on
specific roads.
The food was equally good-interesting/satisfying choices along with the
usual items. The latkes were off the chart! I also found sag
and other support to be upbeat and helpful.
The one word of caution was the frequent buzz about Sierra Road.
I heard people discussing it all day-mainly from the perspective of
anxiety-"should I do it or not...it's rough...". I did the climb but had
to keep the background noise out of my thinking to control my anxiety..
In the end, it was certainly tough but not impossible.
Thanks for putting on such an excellent event.
Matt Feuer
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This was truly a great event. The course was great and everyone (all the volunteers and SAG) was super-friendly. SAG had impeccable timing: on 2 occasions, a flat and mechanical problems, they came right around the corner, after only a few minutes. The food was DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Loved it....and I came all the way from Sacramento. Will definitely do it next year and bring more people to the event. The only thing I would change is the "out" factor; meaning I would prefer a loop so that once I'm done riding I can get in the car and go home.
THANK YOU!
Soledad Voss
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First off, I'd like to thank you and the team for organizing such a
great ride. I live and ride from Pleasanton, so had done most
of the pieces before, but it was great to have an excuse to string
all my favorites together in one go and have a group of fellow
enthusiastic cyclists to do it with. I ended up doing the full
super BOB, thanks in no small part to the encouragement and mutual
support from other riders I met on the way. You even managed
to lay on perfect weather for it - I'm not sure I would have dared
take on Sierra Road if it had been in the 90s!
All in all, a fantastic day, and I'm definitely up for doing it
again next year. Thanks again for such an enjoyable day.
Rgds
Dave Brunswick
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I was part of a trio (A. Spinale and J. Porro) and this was our
first year riding with BOB. We rode the Super Bob and the
entire ride back to Marin County, could not stop talking about the
wonderful job you folks did in coordinating the ride. We do a
lot of organized rides, and yours was very memorable. Things
that worked very well were the number and quality of the stops, the
obvious number of SAG wagons (which give a certain level of comfort
when on such a long / demanding route and often alone), the genuine
enthusiasm and small ceremony that riders received at the top of
Sierra and the buffet at the end was just an overall bonus !
But most of all, the BOB volunteers were fabulous. So helpful,
knowledgeable and genuinely excited for the rider’s accomplishments.
The BOB volunteers are what made it an overall great experience.
Thanks again for a great day and hope to see you next year.
Shannon Schleicher
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This was my first year with the BOB ride, and I loved it. It
was great to see such beautiful country! My only complaint
would be the cool weather in the early morning, but of course you
could do nothing about that. The food and sports drinks were
great! Also enjoyed the good cheer. Hope to share this
experience with you again next year.
Eileen LaBerge
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I had a wonderful ride, thank you so much. The best part was
how personable and friendly everyone was - the ride was small, so I
was being greeted by name at each of the stops, it was really nice.
I also loved that you guys offered Heed, I've never seen that on a
ride!
Thanks for a wonderful day.
jess jensen
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Good ride, good SAG, very well done.
A couple of recommendations:
--route markers were, in a couple of places, easy to miss. I
blew right past one on the loop.
--would it make sense to alter the route so that Sierra is earlier
in the ride? Hitting the worst climb 90 miles into the ride
is...painful, for the legs, butt and ego.
Thanks, Todd Bryan
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I did enjoy the ride very much. It was challenging (I completed the
brutal Sierra Rd loop, I thought I would have left my innards on
that road!) but also very interesting due to the wide variety of
landscape and scenery.
The food was way above average, I would say gourmet, and that
certainly made the whole experience even more pleasant. Every single
volunteer stood out for kindness and warm attitude (forlorn cyclists
do not connect very well after a while, as you know). Overall
it was a great ride, probably the best I have had so far; I would
certainly recommend it to friends, and do it again in the future.
Thanks again for all the hard work!
Sincerely,
Maurizio Franzini
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Thanks for a great event on Saturday, I did the full 'super' BOB for
the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it. Seeing as you asked
for feedback here are my (brief) thoughts.
The food at the rest stops was excellent, always nice to get some
protein as well as just the usual carbs and sugar. The rest
stops were well located, easy to find and nicely spaced along the
route.
The route itself was great with Sierra being a really good challenge
towards the end. I love the idea of using Bart, it worked
perfectly and the end meal at sweet tomatoes was ideal.
As a first time rider, I did not know the route and found some of
the road markings tough to spot. Other than that minor point,
it was one of the best rides I have done and good value for money
too.
Thank you very much.
Simon David
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I had a great ride doing the Super BOB. I liked all the
options for the 25 mile loop and the 16 mile Sierra Rd loop.
It was a great set up to minimize rest stops by using the same ones
twice. The Sweet Tomato finish was a great way to save the
volunteers from cooking, cleaning and prepping. Plus it
eliminates the usual post ride old stale food on the chaffing dishes
by the time the Super BOB folks get in at the end of the day.
The roads were great and really low traffic, which is tough as I
ride my motorcycle on some of them. The highway 84 section was
a bit ugly compared to 95% of the rest of the ride, but you have to
take some of those types of roads I guess. I am not that
familiar with the area to make a redirected route off of the busy 84
part.
All the volunteers were very friendly and extremely helpful.
There was always someone giving directions for the next few turns
out of the rest stops. I can’t say enough about them.
They were fantastic!
Take care,
John Porro
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Hi! This was my first organized cycling event. I thought it went off
beautifully. The food & support from the Cherry City Cyclists was
delicious and creative. The last hill kicked my ass royally, as its role
is to do to fortify my resolve to just get better. Good experience.
Thanks, Rob Howard
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This is the second time I've done BOB and found it once again
beautifully organized. Two of us had a time constraint, so we
figured out how to do a SHORT BOB...50 miles. It worked out
well, and we were with the rest of the group until Niles Canyon
(mile 44?). We arrived at Sweet Tomatoes at 12:10 (we left
Orinda at 7:05AM), and Cheryl arrived shortly thereafter. I
would suggest adding that option. Many people I talked with
were too intimidated by the 83 mile minimum, considering the amount
of climb, and did not sign up for it because of that. It's
also good to know that there is a reasonable shorter option that you
can take if the weather is as beastly hot as it was a couple of
years ago.
I thank you for the large font on the route sheet as well as the
prominent emergency numbers there.
Thank you! sally goodman
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