Urban Dare

Someone else said it perfectly: urban snare. Spend 90 bucks, get a t-​shirt! All of the clues are easily found through a Google search. Just pull up the first page of the person/​places Wikipedia entry. Anyway, you solve the clue and you go to the location annnnnd… take a picture with it. Well okay… the next dare will surely be exciting, right?! Get to a location the dare is: make a balloon animal. Next one is jump rope with your partner. What are we, 12?! Lather, rinse, repeat. And if you do it in a city without adequate public transport (re:Raleigh, NC) expect to run like the wind everywhere. We gave up half way through and had already gone 7 ¾ miles per my pedometer on my phone. Some of my friends persevered to the end and were rewarded with (drumroll please): nothing. Nothing. «Thank you, goodbye.» Where the heck did my 90 dollars go?! Google searches and t-​shirts?! All I got out of this was my cardio for the day, which I could have done for free. Do NOT do this stupid «race». It is the biggest waste of money, and it irks me to no end that this sham of a company has 90 of my hard earned dollars. There is nothing daring or even fun about urban dare.

So my friend and I were supposed to participate in the San Francisco dare a couple weeks ago, we showed up 15 minutes before the race was to start and there were no staff members there to check people in and everyone was self serving themselves to check in. I got to the list and our names weren’t on the list, but obviously there weren’t any staff to ask what to do. We did not participate in the event and I emailed to let urban dare know what had happened. I got back one email saying that they weren’t turning anyone away. So now I’m out $ 90, they aren’t responding, and we didn’t even get to participate. This was a poorly run event, in our experience, and I don’t think I’d participate in one of their events again.

I completed Urban Dare San Jose 2013 with three of my best friends, and let me tell you — planning out your route is everything. The nice part about the race is that you’re allowed to complete the clues in any order, which is fun because it keeps you guessing what place you’re in when you see your competitors running around you. Another bonus is that you can use your phones during the race, and I highly recommend having a smart phone or two. Trust me; you will need to use the internet to tackle down those tricky trivia questions! Using the Maps app will definitely come in handy when sketching out your route as well.
The race itself is a darn good workout. Being a group of four out-​of-​shape college students, we certainly broke a sweat! So wear comfortable clothing, a pair of running shoes and tie your hair up because this race will test your stamina. Having a water bottle with you during the race is a must too. All together, I think we ran a total of 8+ miles because we didn’t use public transportation once. We also found ourselves backtracking for one of the clues, which is why I stress the importance of knowing the exact locations of your destinations before you jet off. So when you get your set of clues — solve, search, plan!
The only reason I docked off a star is because it seemed a little unorganized. For instance, when we were checking in, the man in charge gave us a little scare because he said we never registered to begin with. Little did he know that he had forgotten to add us on the list. The difficulty of the dares also could have been boosted, but you have to keep in mind that the competitors comprised of elders and children too.
To our surprise, my friends and I finished 33^rd out of 120 groups and were the first team of four to finish the race. We were given a plaque and announced along with the first place winners in front of everybody who crossed the finish line. It was a moment I will probably never forget. It was our first time entering the race, and I think we all agree that it was one of the most challenging things we’ve ever done. Two hours of running in immense heat in downtown SJ, asking strangers to take our photos, a three-​legged race, and a whole lot of fun. Sign up for Urban Dare if you’re down for a taste of a local «Amazing Race,» and I know you won’t regret it. I’m already looking forward to joining again next year!

Our family did this for the first time — it was more like Urban Snare. Here’s a breakdown of what will happen at your experience for over $ 200.
Before the start of the race: Get your t-​shirt, pretty low key environment, no staff members going around to talk to or pump up anyone. I estimated about 80 people total in the race.
Start of the race: Some dude gets up and says «Yay! Urban Dare San Jose, are you ready?»
And now for the custom contest which involves cheering for about 15 participants to pick a winner. We pick a winner, winner is confused since there is no prize or pretty much no recognition. No sound, or siren to start the race, just go to the other 3 staff members and grab a single sheet of paper with 12 clues.
12 Clues — Basically, everyone just goes off for about 15 minutes to do Google searches on their smartphones for terms and plot addresses of where they will take photos or where they will do «DARES!» — more on that later
The teams take off for their destinations, take group photos in front of stores, statues, and make a few strangers take pictures as well.
Now for the DARES!!! Woohoo!.. They consist of:
1)Hunt in a patch of low bushes for obvious signs with an associated numerical value — look at your word, and add up the numbers for each of the letters! Crazy stuff.
2) Eat a piece of gum off a plate and blow a bubble! (The Infamous Bubble Challenge)
3) Create balloon animals! We created a sword following instructions, I thought the traffic around us was going to stop, good thing there were paramedics around.
4) Do a three legged race! Yep, this was the most dangerous and might I say controversial challenge of them all. I won’t spoil what this is, unless of course you’ve done something similar in 1^st grade field day.
After you’ve finished the URBAN DARE — Just go back to the bar, check in, and ummm. go home. No party, really nothing. go home! It’s done.
Here’s what I think Urban Dare put into it as far as resources:
1) Participants get a: T-​Shirt. Yep, that’s it folks, bring your own pen by the way, and water and everything. One of your team member will get the lucky piece of gum as described in CHALLENGE #2.
2) There were about 4 staff members total for the event, a single person for each CHALLENGE to punch your card.
…

It costs about $ 100 for a team of two to register for this.
I’d never done anything like this before, and it turned out to be kind of fun and a rather novel way of learning interesting little tidbits hidden in the various San Francisco neighborhoods.
You’re also forced to use public transport, as driving is not allowed.
As the other reviewers said, the race takes you to some interesting locations, but in today’s age of smart phones, the internet and google goggles, the clues were quite trivial to solve.
Three stars, because… even though the photo treasure hunt was interesting, the «dares» that we had to do were really stupid:
Dare 1: bounce a tennis ball into a bucket from 4 feet away. Come on… my 18 month old niece could do that in 10 seconds…
Dare 2: Do a three legged walk with your partner around the spire in Union Square (about 30 steps). This took about 20 seconds to do and not very challenging. In fact, the only thing interesting about this was a getting our photos taken by all the tourists who were wondering what we were doing…
Dare 3. Do a two person wheel barrow to a line 10 feet away, and back. (See comments for Dare 2).

A lot like The Amazing Race, but local and done in one day.
The Urban Dare is a blast and easily one of the most fun things I’ve done in the past few months. If you’ve got $ 100, a partner, and a few hours on a Saturday to spare, check it out next year.
We arrived at the Ferry Building around 11:15 am and prepared ourselves as we and about 100 other pairs registered and got our UD shirts on. The race — and that’s what it is, despite the name — started at about 12:15 pm when the organizers handed out clue sheets.
There were 12 clues about various places to go in the city, and none of them were dead giveaways. At each location, we either had to take a photo in front of the landmark or perform a «dare.» My boyfriend and I made jackasses of ourselves in Dolores Park when we had to do a wheel barrow race, and we had a moment of cutesy couple-​ness in Union Square when we had to do a three-​legged stroll around the Dewey monument.
We finished in 3 ½ hours, mostly because we misjudged the distance between things like the Pickwick Hotel and 21^st Amendment Brewery, and because we accidentally went on a two mile detour to the Transamerica Building. I figured out that we probably ran close to 8 ½ miles, and that’s not including the time spent on Muni. I’m pretty sure the winners finished an hour ahead of us, but they had the technical shirts and running shoes that gave away the fact that they probably ran to every location! Yipes!
A few things to remember for those who want to do it next year:
1. Smartphones are a MUST. Since I’m still rocking a fliphone, we had to depend on my boyfriend’s Iphone. Between taking photos and navigating Muni via Nextbus, it would’ve been so much easier if we had two.
2. Ladies, this is a race. You will run. And sprint. Wear a sports bra. (Ouch.)
3. Bring a camelbak/​bottle of water. It was toasty on Saturday, and hydration was oh-​so-​important.
4. Muni pass Muni pass Muni pass. You can’t bike, skateboard, drive, scooter, or anything like that. You can walk, run, or use public transportation.
5. Be fearless. We took a photo of some cops pretending to shoot a bow and arrow. We had the owner of Best in Show do a cartwheel. We ran past the crowd at Ike’s twice and had to explain ourselves each way. We sprinted from City Hall to Union Square and had to dodge buses, homeless people, and tourists.
It was a hell of a time, and further reinforced why San Francisco is such an awesome place to live and explore. September 10, 2011 — we’re gunning for you!

So much fun! We got to run around the city, take pictures in front of neat locations, and perform some physical challenges.
I ran this race on Sep 12, 2009 with a friend. We met up by the Ferry building where we were given racing numbers and t-​shirts. I loved the costumes some of the teams had like a Baywatch lifeguard team, and another with tutus.
We were given 6 clues for locations, which you pretty much have to use the internet to figure out the answer to. For example, one of the clues was to take a picture in front of the quote
«The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great that I thought I was in a dream.»
We found out that this is part of a Jack Kerouac poem. Looking some more, we found out there is a Jack Kerouac alley between Grant and Columbus.
We figured out all six locations, mapped them out, and picked our optimal path to reach all six and took off running to take pictures in front of each of the locations. Knowing how to use the iphone I borrowed from my friend sure would have helped, as we pretty much just ran everywhere besides one bus trip. We even ran through through Chinatown, which was so crowded, we ended up running on the road some times. It stunk showing up at some location out of breath and all sweaty, while some other team got there before us with barely any energy because they used the bus. Leg 1 took us to places like Jonathan Borofsky’s Human Structures and Washington Square for a bean bag toss.
The end of section 1 was by the touristy part of Lombard street, where you had a word, and you had to look through the flower bed for signs with a character and number on it. You then, had to add up the numbers to figure out the total for your word. We then got another six clues and took off to places like the Titanic bar, Jefferson Square, and the Asian Att Museum.
The race finish was the Chieftain Irish pub. It felt great to eat and chill with the other racers. We finished 12^th out of 41 teams. I hope the race comes back to the Bay area again soon.