No, there are some drops that might make you bail but nothing life threatening.
Nicely done man! Looks like fun. I feel way better about my trail rash now!We took our bone stock manual badlands bronco through the Poison Spider-Golden Spike-Gold Bar Rim trails!
Some Background: My wife and I took a trip out to Moab to visit her sister while she is working in Utah. This was a very loosely planned trip with only some details planned ahead of time. For example we knew we wanted to go mountain biking, and that we wanted to try at least one of the off-road trails there, as well as explore the backcountry and do some hiking. We left Michigan after work on Wednesday (11/10/21) and were in Moab Friday afternoon. We kicked things off with an awesome bike ride on the Porcupine Rim Trail. This is one of the few double black diamonds I have been on where it really felt earned. Most of the trail was reasonable but some sections felt like pro lines.
Saturday we decided to try a dedicated off-road trail. I have some off-road experience in Michigan, between a few trips to Bundy hill and Holly Oaks and a lot of time spent in the UP, but nothing quite like Moab and certainly not much of anything with our Bronco yet. Before our trip I had started looking up the trail rating system which lays out the requirements and recommendations for each trail quite nicely and decided that I would be happy with level 5 or 6 trails. I figured a 7 might be possible (not recommended without 35's or lockers) but wanted to play it safe. Well, I changed my mind and that morning I decided I wanted to try Poison Spider (7) which feeds out to Golden Spike (7) and eventually Gold Bar Rim (6). There are even some optional level 8 trails within that trail system but I decided to count my blessings.
The Bronco Killed it! My primary concern was body damage or a potential rollover, neither of which happened. I had a tow strap and camping gear for 4 so I wasn’t too concerned about getting "stuck" as there would be plenty of built rigs on the trail to help out if needed. I am happy to report that no assistance was necessary. Since we started a bit late in the morning, 10am, we ended up camping out on the trail. This may be frowned upon but its BLM land and the trails took much longer than I anticipated, and sunset was only 5:30.
I often went out of my way to take the more challenging and fun line so long as it was still roughly a "level 7". There are many optional lines on this trail that are level 8 or higher for more advanced rigs to fool around on. I was very fortunate to have my sister in law, her boyfriend and my wife to spot me on the trail. It would have been much more challenging and risky to go it alone.
There was lots of undercarriage contact on this trail but nothing truly cringeworthy in my opinion. Skid plates are meant to be used after all! As you can see we popped our license plate holder loose, but nothing i'm too concerned about. I did some obstacles without lockers, but the hardest ones required at least one, if not both. I generally used both if I needed them at all. 35's would have helped but the 33's were fine and I loved having every bit of flex and wheel travel available from the standard Badlands. I also aired down to 20 PSI. This made a huge difference, I would almost say that it is completely necessary, at least for smaller tires.
In this post are a number of photos from our ride. I also crudely spliced together a bunch of MP4 files from our phones and uploaded them to YouTube. I am not a video editor so apologies for the low quality, though to be fair we were there first and foremost to have a good time, not to film a documentary or an advertisement.
As you can see in the video, we didn't film every single obstacle, and a couple times the video cuts before the obstacle was completed. In the case where I was high centered. I just locked the differentials and Jed hopped on the bumper and that's all she needed to pull herself free.
This was the first real obstacle on the trail (actually to the right of the frame out of view), right after the first couple switchbacks. I was very nervous and almost turned back. However, getting through this gave me the confidence to push forward to much harder obstacles that made this one seem rather tame.
The middle and upper sections of the "waterfall" obstacles
The "wedgy", this is actually pretty easy, but high risk of body damage if you get careless.
I just thought this was a really cool looking part of the trail.
Love this shot at almost full droop.
As seen in the video, this is what I thought was the trickiest drop/ledge. Luckily I only had to go down.
Fresh coffee in the morning!
1mph obviously includes the overnight. But we certainly weren't moving crazy fast.
Heres the video!
Trail rash is a badge of honor! But I do try to keep it on the underbody...
Yeah I have the hardest time washing my rig after taking her into the mud. They look so much better dirty.
I just rode the Whole Enchilada in September on my Orbea Rallon with 170MM of travel and it ate it up. Nothing in my opinion in which you will fall off and die unless your not careful.
Great to see! My non-squatch badlands is supposed to be built next week. A bit surprised to see how well yours did.We took our bone stock manual badlands bronco through the Poison Spider-Golden Spike-Gold Bar Rim trails!
Some Background: My wife and I took a trip out to Moab to visit her sister while she is working in Utah. This was a very loosely planned trip with only some details planned ahead of time. For example we knew we wanted to go mountain biking, and that we wanted to try at least one of the off-road trails there, as well as explore the backcountry and do some hiking. We left Michigan after work on Wednesday (11/10/21) and were in Moab Friday afternoon. We kicked things off with an awesome bike ride on the Porcupine Rim Trail. This is one of the few double black diamonds I have been on where it really felt earned. Most of the trail was reasonable but some sections felt like pro lines.
Saturday we decided to try a dedicated off-road trail. I have some off-road experience in Michigan, between a few trips to Bundy hill and Holly Oaks and a lot of time spent in the UP, but nothing quite like Moab and certainly not much of anything with our Bronco yet. Before our trip I had started looking up the trail rating system which lays out the requirements and recommendations for each trail quite nicely and decided that I would be happy with level 5 or 6 trails. I figured a 7 might be possible (not recommended without 35's or lockers) but wanted to play it safe. Well, I changed my mind and that morning I decided I wanted to try Poison Spider (7) which feeds out to Golden Spike (7) and eventually Gold Bar Rim (6). There are even some optional level 8 trails within that trail system but I decided to count my blessings.
The Bronco Killed it! My primary concern was body damage or a potential rollover, neither of which happened. I had a tow strap and camping gear for 4 so I wasn’t too concerned about getting "stuck" as there would be plenty of built rigs on the trail to help out if needed. I am happy to report that no assistance was necessary. Since we started a bit late in the morning, 10am, we ended up camping out on the trail. This may be frowned upon but its BLM land and the trails took much longer than I anticipated, and sunset was only 5:30.
I often went out of my way to take the more challenging and fun line so long as it was still roughly a "level 7". There are many optional lines on this trail that are level 8 or higher for more advanced rigs to fool around on. I was very fortunate to have my sister in law, her boyfriend and my wife to spot me on the trail. It would have been much more challenging and risky to go it alone.
There was lots of undercarriage contact on this trail but nothing truly cringeworthy in my opinion. Skid plates are meant to be used after all! As you can see we popped our license plate holder loose, but nothing i'm too concerned about. I did some obstacles without lockers, but the hardest ones required at least one, if not both. I generally used both if I needed them at all. 35's would have helped but the 33's were fine and I loved having every bit of flex and wheel travel available from the standard Badlands. I also aired down to 20 PSI. This made a huge difference, I would almost say that it is completely necessary, at least for smaller tires.
In this post are a number of photos from our ride. I also crudely spliced together a bunch of MP4 files from our phones and uploaded them to YouTube. I am not a video editor so apologies for the low quality, though to be fair we were there first and foremost to have a good time, not to film a documentary or an advertisement.
As you can see in the video, we didn't film every single obstacle, and a couple times the video cuts before the obstacle was completed. In the case where I was high centered. I just locked the differentials and Jed hopped on the bumper and that's all she needed to pull herself free.
This was the first real obstacle on the trail (actually to the right of the frame out of view), right after the first couple switchbacks. I was very nervous and almost turned back. However, getting through this gave me the confidence to push forward to much harder obstacles that made this one seem rather tame.
The middle and upper sections of the "waterfall" obstacles
The "wedgy", this is actually pretty easy, but high risk of body damage if you get careless.
I just thought this was a really cool looking part of the trail.
Love this shot at almost full droop.
As seen in the video, this is what I thought was the trickiest drop/ledge. Luckily I only had to go down.
Fresh coffee in the morning!
1mph obviously includes the overnight. But we certainly weren't moving crazy fast.
Heres the video!
Thanks for the thread. Really enjoyed your write up and pics/video. Looks like you guys had a fantastic time!
Have you driven the slick rock before? My first time to Moab was earlier in the year and we had to rent a Jeep (no Bronco yet!) And it was tons of fun.
Your BL is doing great on those obstacles, if we had to believe everything we read on these forums then it would be impossible for you to have done anything you posted.... Because driving a manual offroad is impossible (just like the lads had to push the jeeps everywhere in WWII).
Well for you specifically the extra ground clearance would be mandatory to hard park your rig at the Applebee's.
You have given a massive amount of credit to the lift yet volunteered to ignore the fact Ford put the cheapest and worst performing tires possible on Sasquatch package. The K02's that come stock on Badlands are actual off road tires with a drastically higher envelope. People actually buy K02's to put on their rigs to drive off road. Applebee's allows sasquatch equipped Broncos just for the look and so families will come in.
K02s may be better than the GYs, but on big obstacles, 35s simply take you further. A lot of scraping in that video! Very commendable this guy charged it on 33s! Long before you were renting Jeeps to off-road, I did a lot of scraping in my new manual 94 Defender 90 on 32s and only a center locking differential. Although manuals are more engaging and perhaps more fun, I switched to a 95 D90 automatic mainly for the warmer hardtop. It was easier in climbs and descents, but with less mojo. The three Wrangler Rubicons I've owned were all automatics, which I grew to appreciate maybe because it made driving easier, on and off road. I drove two of them on two winter overland trips from Laredo TX to Panama and back through every country and shit road in Central America. Rubicons had 32s back then and with diff lockers, I never had trouble anywhere down there. Anyway, I hadn't been so excited about a vehicle when the Bronco was revealed since seeing the Defender at the Boston auto show in 1994. I opted for Squatch and the 2.7 because it's a good deal. It'll doubtless see a lot more road than dirt/rock/mud time, but I'll have fun with it on summer trips. Wife has a BaseManSquatch on order which I'll give to my 4 or 6 y.o. daughter. You know, the girls you like to talk smack about? Imagine how cool it'll be in 12 years when they're riding a Mansquatch past young men in rented Jeeps with inferiority complexes? BTW, I've never set foot in an Applebee's. Are they good? Keep trolling and talking trash about my family.
