DICK CEPEK TRAIL COUNTRY EXP

Torture-testing Dick Cepek’s do-it-all rubber

- Jered Korfhage

Dick Cepek is a household name in the off-road community; it’s also a name that’s synonymous with adventure. The company joined us on Four Wheeler’s 2019 Overland Adventure, where we journeyed with a group of participants across the Arizona backcountry from Wickenburg to Flagstaff, driving almost exclusively off-road and camping each night. We outfitted a ’17 Wrangler for the adventure with suspension, lights, and armor, but the story here is what handled contact with the ground beneath—Dick Cepek’s Trail Country EXP tires.

In advance of the adventure, we visited the headquarters of VTX Wheels, where our Dick Cepek rubbers were fit around a set of 17x9 Terra wheels. The aluminum wheels satisfied our need for a respectably sporty look, and the hue matched that of a weathered American one-cent piece.

The Dick Cepek Trail Country EXP falls between its two close relatives—the Trail Country, an all-terrain tire; and the company’s mud-terrain, the Extreme Country. Tighter spacing on the center lugs separates the tire from its mud-philic brethren by offering better pavement performance while still holding the road during rainstorms. Wider lug spacing on the outer tread grabs the dirt while stone ejectors between the blocks toss out offending stones. The two-ply sidewalls also come with their own lugs for increased traction when the pressure is inevitably dropped for off-highway adventures. With everything tucked neatly under our fender flares, this is where the rubber met the road—and the rocks, and snow, and mud, and every imaginable terrain. Have a look at how the Dick Cepek Trail Country EXPs fared through our 10,000-mile torture test.fourwheeler.com