GOBA Culture

Alan Gilbert
4 min readJun 24, 2024

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Photo Credit: Smugmug.com

This year, I rode GOBA for the first time and was so intrigued by the culture that I had to write about it. Despite GOBA being around for 35 of my 45 years of Ohio cycling, I never participated until a close friend invited me to this year’s event. GOBA, in a nutshell:

  • Is the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure
  • Attracts around 2,000 cyclists annually
  • Explores a different section of Ohio, and sometimes neighboring states, every year
  • Runs for a week
  • Typically explores four towns, highlighting local attractions and events, changing venues every one to two days
  • Features camping at local parks and fairgrounds
  • Provides some of the meals and snacks, but participants are encouraged to patronize local restaurants and food trucks
  • Offers rides of varying lengths, from 25 to 100+ miles, with optional “layover” days off

I’ve participated in many cycling events over the years. My adventure trips, including a coast-to-coast journey, were about epic challenges and exploration with friends and family. Pelotonia, which I have ridden for the last eight years (switching this year to Pan Ohio), is about fighting cancer, celebrating the Central Ohio cycling community, doing something special with your friends (often colleagues on company-sponsored teams), and showing off your cool carbon-fiber bike. There’s nothing like riding past rural homes with cancer survivors holding up big“thank you” signs. Or being greeted by the Granville marching band as you ride down Broadway. Other fundraisers feel like mini versions of Pelotonia. I also participated in the now-defunct Mountain Bike Weekend, which had a much different culture than any road-biking event.

But GOBA was different from all of them. I felt like I had been transported back to the ’70s, in part because many of the bikes seemed to be from the ’70s, and in part because many of the participants were in their 70s. First and foremost, GOBA was all about people who just love riding their bikes and have done so all their lives. I saw all manner of bikes ranging from old steel-frame relics (“steel is real, baby!”) to modern carbon fiber featherweights. There were two-wheelers, three-wheelers, recumbents (some of them handcycles for people who had lost the use of their legs), tandems, and of course, lots of e-bikes (don’t get me started on e-bikes!).

Photo Credit: Smugmug.com

Most participants proudly wore jerseys or t-shirts from past GOBAs, other big events like RAGBRAI, or dozens of other cycling events and clubs. The dates on the jerseys stretched back years or even decades, proudly proclaiming “I’m a lifer!”

But what struck me most were the people — hard-core, lifelong pedal junkies, many in their 60s, 70s, or even 80s, enjoying their retirement. There was a pretty even mix of women and men and many couples who have been riding together for years, if not decades. There were multi-generational family groups, including “The Miller Mob,” where parents and grandparents were passing their passion down to the next generation. Many couples and families were on tandems, and I even saw one triple with parents and a 13-year-old child who had already done nine GOBAs! There were Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops doing GOBA for their summer high adventure trips. There were even long-time participants who could not ride, due to health reasons, but who came anyway just to soak up the GOBA vibes and see old friends.

Photo Credit: Smugmug.com

The common thread for every participant was their love for riding bikes. They would rather be riding, or talking about riding, than doing anything else. I kept picturing Dani Rojas of Ted Lasso fame exclaiming, “Cycling is Life!”

If you enjoyed this article, please consider donating to my Pan Ohio efforts to support the American Cancer Society.

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