John, that's interesting on the downhills, guess my fear of heights kicks in. Getting off the brakes, I'll try working on that.
While riding in Arizona with Gotdurt and Rsquared, we were doing some seriously nasty climbs and descents. On some of those descents that were covered with big loose rocks, I had to resort to LOUDLY singing in my helmet, "LET IT GO! LET IT GO!" My instinct is to try to crawl down the hills which makes it harder to control the bike, but I just feel like I am picking up too much speed and won't be able to bring it back under control if I don't keep it slow. It's one of those cases where the lizard brain just has to be overridden by the rational brain. It's kind of like making yourself stand up and stay on the gas in deep sand/gravel when your lizard brain is telling you to chop the throttle, sit down, and stick out your legs
Come ride with me this summer in Cloudcroft! You have an open invitation. There is some stuff with side hill exposure but you don't get that queasy feeling because you are never above the tree line.
While riding the Rim Trail, I only recall a few places that I would consider even remotely "exposed". Really, they were just spots where we were on the side of a relatively steep hill and could see out through the trees to the White Sands below It was not a drop, but it would be a heck of a roll
A good example of what I am talking about
A lot of it is more like this, just cutting in/out of the side of the ridge line, going up and down, back and forth, up and down, back and forth...
There is also this, but it is big and wide and you don't have to go anywhere near the "edge", where the slope down starts
There are also a TON of ATV trails out there that are a lot of fun on a bike. They can get kind of rutted, rocky, and steep, but again, no real height exposure where you feel like you will fall to your death if you go over.
May is a good time to go, and maybe June. Much of the area is in the 5000-9500ft altitude range so the temps are nice even in the hot season here. Weather can always change quickly though because you are in the mountains! I've been rained on pretty good and also hailed on quite heavily! Also, I don't think there is any hunting going on in May so it tends not to be super crowded with ATVs and jeeps/trucks on the dirt roads, but I am not sure about the Fall months. Speaking of dirt roads, there are miles and miles of great dirt roads in that area! You could do all the dirt roads on your big bike with no problem. I carried Sarah and Daniel through there on the back of my 1200 GS and we had a blast. For the ATV stuff though, you'd probably want something smaller, like even smaller than an 800GS. I did some of it on a KLR and it was NOT fun. On my KTM 530, it was FUN!