Originally Posted by
indyfabz
If I am not mistaken, the B.O.B. was designed for off-road touring, and it has been used successfully for that purpose by countless people. My 5' tall, 100 lb. GF has no trouble handling her B.O.B. off or on road, and she's a fearless descender. Leaves me in the dust on and off road. Last summer we did a 9-day in MT that included over 60 miles of unpaved roads. Some of that was quite rough and steep up and down. One steep portion of a descent was bare rock. No problemo.
Two differences in my situation from your GF and that road in the photos. First, I'm a terrible descender to start with. I'll pass plenty of people climbing a hill, but they they'll bomb past me while I'm riding the brakes going downhill. Second, I felt pretty good on hard-pack as shown in that photo. This road had a huge amount of 2", loose rock. I'm quite sure that it wasn't just the B.O.B. that caused my usteadiness; that it was also caused by the combination of rock and my 28mm tires.