Ride Recommendations

The Bay Area has some good areas to ride, but also many that aren’t so good (or are closed all-together). Here are a few we like:

Water Dog Lake Park:

This park is located an easy bike ride from the shop (about 2 miles). It contains about 10 miles of trails, more than half being singletrack which was developed and built by mountain bikers (Berry, the guy who works in the back at the shop, was one of the key players in building these trails). Some small technical stunts built in spot. Also allows for an easy connection to an area called “Carlemont” or “DMC”, which has lots of jumps and downhill-style runs in it. Water Dog is definitely worth checking out. Click here for more info and recommended routes in Water Dog.

The Demo:

This forest (not a park) is located off of Highway 17 between San Jose and Santa Cruz – so a bit of a drive from Belmont, but well worth it! It also has a land manager that is very favorable to working with mountain bikers, with an end result of some of the best, technical, legal singletrack around (Charles was one of the key players in working with the Forest). The land borders on the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, so an epic ride starting in Aptos and doing a loop or two here could be put together. Click here for more info and recommended route in the Demo.

Skeggs/ECdM:

Skeggs Point, which is actually known as El Core de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve, is a preserve up on Skyline Boulevard above the town of Woodside. This land used to be logged, then was a motorcycle park. When it was acquired by MROSD, it was logical that mountain bikers would find these trails quite enjoyable, so the park became very popular. The land manager has sometimes tried to work with cyclists (though sometimes not) and has been implementing a trail plan that has some good stuff for us. Click here for more info and recommended route in ECdM. Click here for an annotated color map (pdf) with trail difficulty ratings.

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