BOB Sport Utility Stroller

To test this, we went straight to a dyed-in-the-wool trail runner in the Rocky Mountains with baby. Who would be better for the job? “This stroller is rippin’,” she told us. It didn’t hurt any that her husband thought the stroller was pretty cool too because it had “travel.” Wow, dude.

She ran about 25 to 30 miles a week for about 10 weeks with her nine-month-old tyke strapped into the stroller, running about half and half paved road and dirt fire roads, with a little bit of singletrack that was truly “gnarly” thrown in for good measure. Now that’s one daring mom!

“This stroller did exceptionally well on pavement. You could run well with it being pushed with one hand, it tracked well in a straight line and you could push on the handle to get it to turn subtly rounding corners,” she told us.

She also said it did very well on the dirt and rough terrain, although on singletrack, it ended up tracking on two wheels instead of three because of the narrowness and the side drop-off (meaning that emergency leash was always on her wrist on this part!). Since you’d lose stability with a narrower wheelbase to accommodate singletracks, our reviewer didn’t feel as if you could change the stroller, although it did concern her. Perhaps what the company needs is a warning that it won’t track properly on trails narrower than a certain number of inches.

“The front brake was only affixed to the front wheel and sometimes when I got going downhill on singletrack, the front wheel was off the trail, making the brake unfunctional and a bit scary,” she added.

Other notes:
• The beefy construction, three inches of suspension and thick knobby tires give it a stable look and feel.
• The suspension is easy to activate with a push on the handle.
• The stroller is a snap to put together out of the box.
• Lots of reflective fabric on the canopy corners work well.
• The handbrake is at a great height on the handle, at least for our tall tester, and becomes a solid parking brake simply by pressing the silver button on the handle.
• The sun canopy is large enough to provide lots of shade for the baby. But the window to peek at baby while running can’t be secured. Our tester suggests a hook-and-loop closure or similar.
• The five-point harness left our mom feeling secure about baby’s ride — “a good thing when you’re screaming around a corner in this thing off-road.” (OK, so our tester got a little out of hand.)
• It collapses pretty easily for car or airplane trips, but the fat tires still take up a lot of space.
• Three cheers for pockets and storage from our tester who also used it for shopping trips. Lots of places to stash stuff, but how about one zippered pocket for keys so you know you won’t lose them?

By the way, so who is BOB? When the company was founded its original name was “Beast of Burden” trailers. It didn’t take them long to shorten that to a much simpler BOB.

4.5 hands clapping

Suggested retail: $289 for polymer wheels (add $40 for aluminum)
www.bobgear.com

1-800-893-2447 or 805-541-2554