There’s no better time of year to explore new places to ride than the summer. Marin has lots of park land and over 200 miles of fire roads and trails to explore. However, there are some amazing places to ride that you can drive to in a day or less. We’re talking trails that are built specifically for mountain biking, such as in Bend Oregon and Santa Cruz, or long technical descents with 5,000+ feet in elevation loss, such as at Lake Tahoe. Here are three destinations for a summer mountain bike getaway.
Mr. Toads Wild Ride and Corral Area Trails – Lake Tahoe
Travel time: 3.5 hours
The good folks at TAMBA (Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association) have built a network of fun, challenging trails above South Shore Lake Tahoe. Mr. Toad’s is a bucket list trail for sure. It starts off technical and then drops into some great single-track with banked turns towards the end. To the north are the Corral area trails, which are suitable for all riding levels and include log rides, jumps, sweeping berms and rock rolls. The Star Lake Trail is ridable in both directions and connects to the Tahoe Rim Trail. It also connects with the Cold Creek trail, which according to the TAMBA website is “suitable for beginner to intermediates and as you get higher the level of technical riding increases. Amazing rock work on the upper portions make for a super fun downhill ride through aspens, ferns and past small waterfalls.”
Wanna Ride runs shuttle service to all trail heads – http://www.wannaridetahoe.com/
Bend, Oregon
Travel time: 9 hours
While there are many great places to ride in Oregon (Oakridge, Mackenzie River Trail, Umpqua River, Ashland), none offer the total package experience like Bend, Oregon. As a matter of fact, the combo of 15+ microbreweries, an amphitheater with great live music and an abundance of year-round sports and recreation activates, it tops our list of bike-friendly retirement destinations.
Bend is a mountain bikers paradise, we can’t think of another place with such an accessible concentration of purpose built bike trails. The place to start is the trail network just west of town off Skyliner Road, look for Phil’s Trailhead. From here you ride up the gradual slope and then pick your return route. We highly recommend Whoops, which we hope to mimic in Marin some day. It’s a super fun gradual downhill with berms, jumps, table tops and rollers. It’s a very flowy trail that riders of all skill levels can enjoy.
At the bottom of Whoops you can hook up with Phil’s Trail or make your way over to the more technical Voodoo, Grand Slam or KGB trails. There are tons more trails and two areas for people who like dirt jumps and stuff like that. If you are looking for a longer ride there’s the Tumalo Falls to Mrazek loop or the all-day North Fork to Flagline Trail (this one is closed until mid August due to snow and elk mating season). These trails are built and maintained by the Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA), check out their website for trail details. Cog Wild is another great resource when visiting Bend. And don’t forget to check out all those breweries!
Soquel Demonstration State Forest – Santa Cruz, CA
Travel time: 2 hours
Photo courtesy of Bermstyle
This is probably the best trail system outside Marin that you can get to in just a few hours. And it’s laid out so that you can do multiple runs without retracing your tire tracks. Most people park along Highland Way and ride up to Ridgeline Trail. From Ridgeline you can descend Corral, Braille or Sawpit Trails; and now the new Flow Trail!
All Demo Forest trails lead to Hihn’s Mill Road, which you ride back up to Ridgeline, or when you’re done, take back to the parking area. Braille is a fun and challenging steep descent with lots of jumps and berms and other features. You can ride around the more difficult features and some features are progressive, so you can practice your skills on the small stuff to help expand your comfort level. Sawpit is a fast, long cross-country trail with a few surprises. The new Flow Trail is a 3.75 mile 1,250 ft descent that’s so perfect that you’ll be in a state of complete bike bliss whether you’re a beginner or seasoned downhiller. There are other great trails at Soquel, for details visit the Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz website.
http://www.mbosc.org/current-projects/4-mile-flow-trail-at-demo/where-is-the-flow-trail-at-demo/
There are so many great places to ride on the West Coast. This is just a small sample, hope you enjoy!
MCBC Off-Road 
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