VIDEO: Moab’s Slickrock Trail

Last summer, on our way to the Bonnier Motorcycle Group's Adventure Rally in Gunnison, Colorado, off-road ace Ryan Dudek and I took a little detour to attempt Moab's Slickrock Trail on our pair of Cycle World long-term ADV machines, the BMW R1200GS Adventure and KTM 1190 Adventure R. Although this video doesn't begin to show the difficulty we (I, in particular) experienced on a 600-pound machine on the trail's very steep assents and descents, I can assure you this trail is not for inexperienced riders. The 10-mile trail is well marked (with the famous white dashes), but offers virtually no margin for error, as much of its designated line traces the edge of cliffs from which you and your bike would not survive a fall.

But survive we did. At the time, the idea seemed like a good one, and was it fun to bench race about the experience. But when Dudek (a frequent Baja 500/1000 podium finisher and class winner) stated how gnarly he thought it was, only then did I realize the level of accomplishment. Six months later, I returned in December and rode part of the same loop (half of it was covered in snow) on KTM's Freeride and realized how insane it was to do on a heavyweight ADV. Our advice, stick to an enduro or a mountain bike.