Do you need a offroad sticker to ride this forest???

Yes.

Even if your bike is street-legal?
Cars don't have to have stickers on the forest roads

if your just passing thru on Dual Sports, not sure I'd be too worried about it?
If your going to stay and camp and ride the trails, sure.

NEW MEXICO OFF-HIGHWAY MOTOR VEHICLE (OHV) PROGRAM

Out of State or Visitor Permitting Requirements

If you need an ORV sticker, get a Texas sticker. The Texas sticker helps Texas riders.
Read here.

The key phrase seems to be "Off highway vehicle" or OHV, so if you have a street legal vehicle then it is not an OHV right? I know they don't ticket cars, from out of state that are using the forest roads.

If you ride the trails you need a sticker.

$16 is not much compared to what you spend on your bike & gear. Part of it goes to a good cause.

I know Chris and I don't mind ,I have a 2013 Texas sticker right now.
Just looking for clarification mainly.
I guess your right, the difference must be with the distinction between forest trail or forest road

Can anyone share a link on riding in Cloudcroft? Any good trails out there, fire roads etc??

http://www.sangres.com/newmexico/national-forests/lincoln/trails/index.htm
look in the Sacramento Ranger district.
There are maps on the US GOV site for trails around Cloudcroft in the National forest.
there are at least 120 miles if trails and hundreds of miles of dirt roads as well.


There are Map links on this page http://www.fs.usda.gov/recmain/lincoln/recreation
You can also get official info from the Ranger office I think for free.

Check these links:

http://www.twtex.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90392

http://www.twtex.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97321&highlight=smokey

Thanks guys

Reviving this ole thread in case anyone needs the info. Just got back from Cloudcroft this past weekend. Registered bikes (plated, license, etc.) are not required to have an OHV sticker to ride the trails, even out of state bikes. If you are not plated, then you need the OHV sticker. A big problem that we ran in to is that Cloudcroft seems to operate on their own schedule...meaning places and businesses don't open up when they say they will. The Forrest station is closed on the weekends, and the Chamber of Commerce never opened on Saturday like the sign says they are. We went all over town looking to get OHV stickers with no luck. General consensus talking to the locals is that they order theirs online ahead of time, and the sticker is mailed to you. Got stopped by a local police officer when hitting the road for about a mile to the trail head. Had two bikes with plates, 1 without. He was nice enough to just give us a warning and some pointers on the trails.

Rim Trail is a blast to ride. Goes straight south for ~30 miles of single-track. Moderate rating. Some difficult but some easy. At the end you have the option to come back on the same trail, hit the 40 miles of nice gravel roads winding along the mountains, or hit the asphalt to get back. Good mix of thick vegetation, red dirt, lots of rocks, slick roots....a little bit of everything. Challenging and fun. Watch out for elk, they're everywhere!

We stayed at Shyhaven Escape cabin that we found on VRBO.com. Very nice and affordable. Close to trail heads. Definitely would recommend to others and go back when I'll get the chance.

Great info!

New Mexico accepts the Texas OHV decal and the Texas decal is only $16 per year

Definitely just buy your stickers in Texas, a lot of bike shops carry them, or you can see the list and also order from the link below.
New Mexico honors the Texas Stickers

https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/texas-off-highway-program/where-to-buy-a-texas-ohv-decal

We pick them up at TJ's in Austin every year.