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Off-Roadeo TX review

JediMcMuffin

Badlands
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Tommy
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Badlands
Clubs
 
Hey all! I got some time to kill in the airport in Austin, so here's my review of the Off-Roadeo. I would strong encourage anyone on the fence to go forward with this. I used to race motorcycles and this was a great experience that reminded me of my days learning to road race.

Accommodations (Hotel):

We stayed at the Horseshoe Bay Resort its a bit swanky, but super nice with friendly staff and the room was very well kept. The shuttle that runs from the resort to the facility only takes about 15 minutes and realistically you could stay further away to save some money. If you can swing staying an extra day to recover you could probably really enjoy the amenities along the very pretty lake.

Accommodations (Off-Roadeo):

The facility is some private property that was converted into some pure instructional areas and some fun trails. The main building has a 4-Door Bronco inside you can climb in, with a ton of accessories added. You're immediately greeted and signed in and given a really nice YETI water bottle that you will make a ton of use of. You return here for dinner with live music after the first day, and for lunch on the second day. The facility has a nice swag shop, and is kept immaculately clean. Outside are a bunch of Bronco sports in various colors and a wall of Bronco accessories you can see in person.

Day 1:

We were introduced to our two instructors, Nadi and Eric who were very clear communicators with a ton of teaching experience. You start by doing the "ORX Driving Experience" with a bit of lecture, where the guys break down the components of the vehicles and what the role of those components are. You're divided into two groups of about 8 people. Each group of eight begins rotating into the Bronco (passengers and drivers) and you begin working through the different sections where you learn a principle of off-road driving, followed by switching on a technology that makes that piece easier like the Stay-Bar disconnect. My guest was also allowed to drive, something that was unclear to me during the registration process. There isn't enough time for each person to do each experience, and at any time half your group is outside the vehicle seeing things happen from the outside. No lie, I'm pretty jealous I didn't get to do the trail turn assist circles in the sand.

After ORX you have some lunch and proceed to the first trail drive. Each group gets to choose their Bronco and we ended up last out there and somehow landed a 4-door First Edition with (wait for it............ a soft-top, too soon?). The instructors spot for you at the beginning, and eventually your guest or another driver will begin spotting for you as needed. The obstacles escalate in difficulty and every spot the instructors encourage you to use good off-road habits like left-foot braking, and either in person or over the radio they will suggest you play with the technology to see how much easier it makes things. By the end of the day, you will be turning those features on and off on the fly with some nice confidence, with a great understanding of what they do. For the most part, everybody just used the goat mode selector and left the Bronco in 4L with stay-bar disconnected and the lockers turned off. You're supposed to maintain convoy rules and not lose sight of the person behind you, our group was not so great at this. At the end of day if you're as green as us at this, you're pretty pooped.

Day 2:

Day 2 starts early, and you go straight into a trail drive, and this time we snagged a 4-Door Badlands, very similar to my build though with a MIC top, and yes that MIC top was falling apart in places. You cover some of the same sections of trail, and the spacing of the breaks in the drive were nice enough that we could trader drivers every 30-45 minutes so both of us got plenty of time behind the wheel. We stopped for some photo ops which where very cool. The instructors were a bit more hands off and carefully were assessing our aptitude for good decisions and they allowed us to do some much more advanced climbs and descents, some of which were really white knuckle events for us. Not a single person damaged a Bronco or did much more than scrap a skid plate or control arm. We did stop for a bit to rest and the instructors did a nice presentation on necessary recovery tools for doing this kind of thing. After another 1.5 hours of trail driving you end the day what I'll call the handling course. The actual agenda calls it the Fun Haver experience, where you switch the Bronco into 4H (in my case I just picked Baja mode, which I did not expect the Badlands to have. I got to do two full laps, and I'm linking a video here of that.

Closing thoughts:

I would gladly have paid double after the event. Its a great experience and I hope they keep these facilities open and offer more advanced and longer courses and refreshers. I would urge anyone to do it. Having spent an entire day in a soft top, all my apprehensions from changing my Wildtrak to a Badlands a couple months ago fell away, and I count myself lucky to have gotten a build e-mail this morning. I'll attach some more pictures after I get home.



Ford Bronco Off-Roadeo TX review IMG_0392 copy


EDIT: Fixed grammar and spelling
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JediMcMuffin

JediMcMuffin

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Didn’t realize offroadeo had its own forum section. If an admin can relocate my thread that’d be cool.
 

iamchewby

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Heading down there tomorrow!
 
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JediMcMuffin

JediMcMuffin

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Here's another video from the experience:



Edit: swapped link with the two-camera version.
 
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JaxGtc

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Wow, no locker. Impressed... :)
 

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JediMcMuffin

JediMcMuffin

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Here's a cool shot, me learning how the stabilizer bar works. In this shot it's still connected

ss 2021-08-16 at 9.43.03 AM.png
 

BoiseBronco

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Hey all! I got some time to kill in the airport in Austin, so here's my review of the Off-Roadeo. I would strong encourage anyone on the fence to go forward with this. I used to race motorcycles and this was a great experience that reminded me of my days learning to road race.

Accommodations (Hotel):

We stayed at the Horseshoe Bay Resort its a bit swanky, but super nice with friendly staff and the room was very well kept. The shuttle that runs from the resort to the facility only takes about 15 minutes and realistically you could stay further away to save some money. If you can swing staying an extra day to recover you could probably really enjoy the amenities along the very pretty lake.

Accommodations (Off-Roadeo):

The facility is some private property that was converted into some pure instructional areas and some fun trails. The main building has a 4-Door Bronco inside you can climb in, with a ton of accessories added. You're immediately greeted and signed in and given a really nice YETI water bottle that you will make a ton of use of. You return here for dinner with live music after the first day, and for lunch on the second day. The facility has a nice swag shop, and is kept immaculately clean. Outside are a bunch of Bronco sports in various colors and a wall of Bronco accessories you can see in person.

Day 1:

We were introduced to our two instructors, Nadi and Eric who were very clear communicators with a ton of teaching experience. You start by doing the "ORX Driving Experience" with a bit of lecture, where the guys break down the components of the vehicles and what the role of those components are. You're divided into two groups of about 8 people. Each group of eight begins rotating into the Bronco (passengers and drivers) and you begin working through the different sections where you learn a principle of off-road driving, followed by switching on a technology that makes that piece easier like the Stay-Bar disconnect. My guest was also allowed to drive, something that was unclear to me during the registration process. There isn't enough time for each person to do each experience, and at any time half your group is outside the vehicle seeing things happen from the outside. No lie, I'm pretty jealous I didn't get to do the trail turn assist circles in the sand.

After ORX you have some lunch and proceed to the first trail drive. Each group gets to choose their Bronco and we ended up last out there and somehow landed a 4-door First Edition with (wait for it............ a soft-top, too soon?). The instructors spot for you at the beginning, and eventually your guest or another driver will begin spotting for you as needed. The obstacles escalate in difficulty and every spot the instructors encourage you to use good off-road habits like left-foot braking, and either in person or over the radio they will suggest you play with the technology to see how much easier it makes things. By the end of the day, you will be turning those features on and off on the fly with some nice confidence, with a great understanding of what they do. For the most part, everybody just used the goat mode selector and left the Bronco in 4L with stay-bar disconnected and the lockers turned off. You're supposed to maintain convoy rules and not lose sight of the person behind you, our group was not so great at this. At the end of day if you're as green as us at this, you're pretty pooped.

Day 2:

Day 2 starts early, and you go straight into a trail drive, and this time we snagged a 4-Door Badlands, very similar to my build though with a MIC top, and yes that MIC top was falling apart in places. You cover some of the same sections of trail, and the spacing of the breaks in the drive were nice enough that we could trader drivers every 30-45 minutes so both of us got plenty of time behind the wheel. We stopped for some photo ops which where very cool. The instructors were a bit more hands off and carefully were assessing our aptitude for good decisions and they allowed us to do some much more advanced climbs and descents, some of which were really white knuckle events for us. Not a single person damaged a Bronco or did much more than scrap a skid plate or control arm. We did stop for a bit to rest and the instructors did a nice presentation on necessary recovery tools for doing this kind of thing. After another 1.5 hours of trail driving you end the day what I'll call the handling course. The actual agenda calls it the Fun Haver experience, where you switch the Bronco into 4H (in my case I just picked Baja mode, which I did not expect the Badlands to have. I got to do two full laps, and I'm linking a video here of that.

Closing thoughts:

I would gladly have paid double after the event. Its a great experience and I hope they keep these facilities open and offer more advanced and longer courses and refreshers. I would urge anyone to do it. Having spent an entire day in a soft top, all my apprehensions from changing my Wildtrak to a Badlands a couple months ago fell away, and I count myself lucky to have gotten a build e-mail this morning. I'll attach some more pictures after I get home.



Ford Bronco Off-Roadeo TX review ss 2021-08-16 at 9.43.03 AM


EDIT: Fixed grammar and spelling
Excuse my ignorance, but are all off rodeo events 2 days? When I booked Moab for November it was only a single day. Did I book wrong?
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