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I went to the Moab Off Roadeo this weekend (10/2) and it was awesome. I'm from Texas and I'm sure the Austin one is fun and definitely go to whichever one you are able but I don't see how it could compare. I got last minute spousal clearance to leave her with the kids and go out to Moab with a friend. Cheapest flights were into SLC it's a 4 hour drive to Moab. Don't stop for food anywhere after you leave Provo, it's not worth it. The Red Cliffs lodge is about 20 minutes outside of Moab proper and looks very nice. Rooms are $400+ /night with the Off Roadeo rate. We stayed at the OK RV Park which had "hunters cabins" for $79/night. It was a tiny shed with 2 beds crammed in it and you use the communal showers/bathrooms. Very rustic and a great value, 100% recommend.
We were on the trail from 9 AM to 6 PM and probably covered 20 - 30 miles of trail, plus 10 miles on the highway to get to the trail head. I'm real glad I got to use their Bronco because I would be too terrified to do the things we did in my own Bronco. I've driven a lot on very washed out roads but never any rock crawling like this. I used to have a 99 Tacoma with the TRD Offroad package but no modifications and never did anything crazy with it. Maybe it could have done these things but it would have been digging the rear bumper into the ground in places. My point is the Bronco seemed to do pretty well by me but I'm sure people who have been modding jeeps for 20 years will have some complaints about how it handles but I was real impressed. I think it'd be pretty cool if they had one stock Rubicon out there for comparison.
Our group was 16 owners plus guests (I don't think anyone was there by themselves, one person had her 2 kids with her). There was also another ~12 Broncos lined up for a later group. Of the 16 owners I met there was only one other guy besides me who had received their Bronco already. My windshield had just cracked a couple days ago so I asked him if his was alright. His cracked on the way home from the dealership. Small but very ominous sample size on windshields right there.
We hit the trails in two groups of 8.
They had a good mix of Broncos to choose from: All bases covered except First Edition: Badlands, Outerbanks, Wildtrak, Black Diamonds and Big Bend. We had at least one of each in our group of 8. I saw a Basequatch out there but in the other group. Across all groups it was probably 2/3 Badlands and Outerbanks. All Broncos were 4door, V6, Sasquatch, tires aired down to 29 ("the lowest Ford would let us go"). So all had a front/rear lockers, and the two Badlands also had the sway bar disconnect. One had a windshield chip another had a very badly cracked windshield. I went in feeling buyer's regret for trying to save money and only get a Black Diamond (manual so no sasquatch and therefor rear locker only) but we did some crazy stuff I would not think you can go up/down in a vehicle and everyone made it up and I did it without the front locker. I'm sure front locker helps but if you can do that stuff without it then nothing I'll do with mine will need it. I don't have many good pictures of the big obstacles that we climbed, but think waist high shelfs. One of the guides posted a video of me going up one of the easier hills
We tried the trail cruise control, where you set the speed and just let it crawl. It was impressive and made some of the climbs smoother than I could have done, but overall not necessary. Also tried the one pedal trail descend (where it applies the brakes until you press on the gas) and I would never use it. It didn't feel right and changed the pedal so it felt like you had to press in twice as much to get it to creep forward. The only feature that I found myself wishing for was the front trail camera, especially when cresting a hill you really can't see anything. Only one in our group had it and the driver said it was very useful. Also I found on the highway portion the 2.7L only had a tiny bit more giddyup than my 2.3L Manual, but I'm not a lead foot so maybe people that really like thrashing their cars and riding peoples bumpers can tell that there's more power, but the 2.3L is more than enough for drivers that keep their blood pressure down.
The only thing that kind of bummed me out was when I got back to Texas and decided I was going to get into this rock crawling lifestyle. I look at the trails on alltrails.com and around Moab and Utah there are thousands of miles of trails all types of difficulty levels and it's just free to go crawl around. Then I look around Dallas and you can drive 2 hours and pay to go to an off road park with 10 miles of trails. So when I want to take my family out to Moab I'll probably just fly out there and end up renting a Jeep. Then I won't have an excuse to lift up my Bronco and put some 35's on it.
Bottom line: go to the Off Roadeo if you can.
We were on the trail from 9 AM to 6 PM and probably covered 20 - 30 miles of trail, plus 10 miles on the highway to get to the trail head. I'm real glad I got to use their Bronco because I would be too terrified to do the things we did in my own Bronco. I've driven a lot on very washed out roads but never any rock crawling like this. I used to have a 99 Tacoma with the TRD Offroad package but no modifications and never did anything crazy with it. Maybe it could have done these things but it would have been digging the rear bumper into the ground in places. My point is the Bronco seemed to do pretty well by me but I'm sure people who have been modding jeeps for 20 years will have some complaints about how it handles but I was real impressed. I think it'd be pretty cool if they had one stock Rubicon out there for comparison.
Our group was 16 owners plus guests (I don't think anyone was there by themselves, one person had her 2 kids with her). There was also another ~12 Broncos lined up for a later group. Of the 16 owners I met there was only one other guy besides me who had received their Bronco already. My windshield had just cracked a couple days ago so I asked him if his was alright. His cracked on the way home from the dealership. Small but very ominous sample size on windshields right there.
We hit the trails in two groups of 8.
They had a good mix of Broncos to choose from: All bases covered except First Edition: Badlands, Outerbanks, Wildtrak, Black Diamonds and Big Bend. We had at least one of each in our group of 8. I saw a Basequatch out there but in the other group. Across all groups it was probably 2/3 Badlands and Outerbanks. All Broncos were 4door, V6, Sasquatch, tires aired down to 29 ("the lowest Ford would let us go"). So all had a front/rear lockers, and the two Badlands also had the sway bar disconnect. One had a windshield chip another had a very badly cracked windshield. I went in feeling buyer's regret for trying to save money and only get a Black Diamond (manual so no sasquatch and therefor rear locker only) but we did some crazy stuff I would not think you can go up/down in a vehicle and everyone made it up and I did it without the front locker. I'm sure front locker helps but if you can do that stuff without it then nothing I'll do with mine will need it. I don't have many good pictures of the big obstacles that we climbed, but think waist high shelfs. One of the guides posted a video of me going up one of the easier hills
We tried the trail cruise control, where you set the speed and just let it crawl. It was impressive and made some of the climbs smoother than I could have done, but overall not necessary. Also tried the one pedal trail descend (where it applies the brakes until you press on the gas) and I would never use it. It didn't feel right and changed the pedal so it felt like you had to press in twice as much to get it to creep forward. The only feature that I found myself wishing for was the front trail camera, especially when cresting a hill you really can't see anything. Only one in our group had it and the driver said it was very useful. Also I found on the highway portion the 2.7L only had a tiny bit more giddyup than my 2.3L Manual, but I'm not a lead foot so maybe people that really like thrashing their cars and riding peoples bumpers can tell that there's more power, but the 2.3L is more than enough for drivers that keep their blood pressure down.
The only thing that kind of bummed me out was when I got back to Texas and decided I was going to get into this rock crawling lifestyle. I look at the trails on alltrails.com and around Moab and Utah there are thousands of miles of trails all types of difficulty levels and it's just free to go crawl around. Then I look around Dallas and you can drive 2 hours and pay to go to an off road park with 10 miles of trails. So when I want to take my family out to Moab I'll probably just fly out there and end up renting a Jeep. Then I won't have an excuse to lift up my Bronco and put some 35's on it.
Bottom line: go to the Off Roadeo if you can.
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