Spot Check: New Mexico Part 1: Down South

The New Mexico landscape is full of diversity and whether you like to ride or race off-road New Mex offers up unforgettable options. In part one of this feature we focus on Southern New Mexico; an area best known but not limited to epic desert offerings. If you care to ride miles of Volkswagen sized whoops then look no further. If you like Rocky Mountain single track then Southern New Mexico has that dialed as well. Our first stop is in Cloudcroft, a small New Mexico town that is only 90 miles from the U.S. / Mexico border. The town of Cloudcroft is located at 8,600 feet and it's home to both the Mile High Trail and Cloudcroft Rim Trail, featured in the videos below. These trails offer up an intense dose of heavy rock mixed nicely with mountain prairie and flowing single track. 

Take a short twenty mile drive from Cloudcroft and you are in Alamogordo, the home the Tarantula 100 and the huge sand whoops I mentioned earlier in this article. The New Mexico Desert Racers Club "NMDRC" kicks off their calendar in February with the Tarantula 100 and while Northern New Mexico is usually under a blanket of the snow, the Alamogordo location typically offers up sunshine and and deep field of racers eager to get the series underway. 

The 2011 Tarantula 100 from Vurboffroad.com on Vimeo.

Next up lets take a look at the Corallitos 100 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. This event is true desert racing with a heavy dose of sharp edged rock, deep sand, and square edged breaking bumps.

Las Cruces from Vurboffroad.com on Vimeo.

Next up is a trip over to Carlsbad New Mexico, best known for the world famous Carlsbad Caverns, but in these circles the Carlsbad 100 is what puts this Eastern New Mexico town on the map. The landscape in Carlsbad is flat with deep sand, more whoops and heavy dust if mother nature doesn't offer up some rain.

Before we move into part two of this New Mexico Spot Check we have one more offering and this time it's from Soccoro. Once again sand and whoops define this landscape. Throw in a heavy dose of rock and Socorro has a reputation of being one of toughest NMDRC races of the year.

This article will move to Northern New Mexico in part two, so stay tuned as we prepare to feature Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Gallup, Farmington, Angel Fire, Los Alamos, and more.

For more information regarding NMDRC please be sure to visit www.nmdrc.com