Mala Compra

Excellent trail beginners and experienced. Cloud 9 is challenging. A must try when in the Palm Coast area.

Such a great place to ride. Good canopy over most trails, but bring water. There's a sweet BBQ place to park across the street and eat after a good ride. Cloud 9 is challenging with some double blacks. There's a man made bridge that leads to the ocean off of "old salt".

Great Florida trail. Roots yes,Hot Hell yea, and close to the beach. This is my favorite trail in Florida now. The beach being close by puts it over the top beating out Santos.

Fun trail. The cloud 9 section had a few challenging obstacles, but nothing too crazy. There was a bypass for most features if you wanted to go around. I did encounter my first gator on the trail, keep your eyes open unless you want to be lunch.

This trail great. I took my wife who is a beginner and stayed on the red trail. It was beautiful. Hard pack..slight elevation changes...switch backs...some small roots etc. If you are a beginner stay on the red trail. The blue trail is technical with lots of challenges. On the red trail if you stay straight where it forks to the right it takes you over two bridges out to the beach. If you go to the right at the fork it takes you about 1.5 miles back towards Publix and puts you out on the side walk that loops back to the trail entry. We did both and had a blast!

Easy to access, some technical parts, roots. Seen a gator both times I have gone! Fun time.

Mala Compra is a nice ride. If offers punchy switchbacks and technical features. To get the most out of your ride you want to include Cloud 9, which is for more experienced riders.

TRAIL CONDITIONS:
As of yesterday, a few sections of Cloud 9 is finally starting to dry up from Hurricane Irma. The area where the wood feature is located on Red Island is under a bit of water. The bridge is still under a little water; you can ride it, but the wood may be slippery. NOTE: The bridge can be bypassed by hopping on the paved trail adjacent to the dirt trail and entering around the corner on the other side of the swamp. The rock wall is still submerged at the bottom. This will take more time to drain, but this there are three other routes to use... There is still 5.4 miles of trail that will test your endurance and skill.

Did a charity ride this past Sat. 7-27, we had to ride the trail backwards. It was my first time here and I found it typical Florida, twisty with plenty of roots, mostly flat. difficult areas marked as you approach them. Some areas were difficult. I must have missed the cloud 9 area. I am advanced beginner so I saw places that I would not try, like a rocky narrow ridge line. Overall I will return to this trail it was fun and challenging.

The previous review by tylerthehuman sums this trail up nicely. Probably 85-90% of it is beginner level but the Cloud 9 section and 1-2 other obstacles in the system are intermediate/advanced. Brought my bike on vacation from southwest Va to ride Graham Swamp and found out I was staying less than 2 miles from this trail. Will hit Graham Swamp later this week but this was a fun ride I didn't expect to get in at the beach! A "3" rating overall but the Cloud 9 section is a good enough time to raise that average to at least a "4".

Cloud 9 is the only spot which makes this 4 stars. It's technical, well maintained with punchy ups and downs. Not too long - only 8 miles in total but if you do Cloud 9 a few times you will get a good work out.

Very cool trail! I didn't get to ride all of it but it was a lot of fun. If you take the right trail, you end up on a very nice secluded beach. I definitely want to come back here and ride more trails!

What a great trail! I have been comming to Palm Coast for 15 years and just found this gem. The other reviews here are on point so I won't waste your time repeating. I will say that if you are intermediat like I am use caution in Cloud 9. There are some fun sections just take it slow. I went over the bars once but luckily landed on my feet. Lots of wildlife too.

Goes from easy to difficult based on which trail market you follow. Double diamonds are very tricky and dufficuly!
Had a great ride .

Fooled me during the first half of the trail. Mostly flat and smooth track until you hit Cloud 9. This is more technical and a lot more challenging. The beginning (before cloud 9) has a lot of "double diamond" markings throughout, which is completely unnecessary. They'll warn you of small logs in the ground, definitely not double diamond. Sometimes it'll indicate double diamond or difficult feature ahead and there'll literally be nothing. This could be fixed. Not that their isn't difficult features, because there definitely is!! Also, once in Cloud 9, there are a few random tangents that go off on their own and makes you wonder if you're missing things. They're not marked at all. Just slightly confusing.

The trail is on the east side of the road, to the right of the bike shop. Park across the street at the boat shop. I couldn't find any other parking, unless you went down Mala Compra Rd towards the beach.

Overall, a nice trail and can definitely challenge you. There are a few technical things that could be adjusted (random double diamond and difficult feature indicators, scattered trails). I will definitely be back to ride again.

This trail has a high fun factor! I've ridden it twice, in the past two weekends. It's shaded for good summer riding. Most of it is rated Intermediate if you conclude an unpaved bike path is easy/novice. About half way in you come to Cloud Nine. The entrance has a little rock-over feature in an attempt to encourage riders with baby seats to continue on the Intermediate trail. I still haven't ridden all of Cloud Nine without dabbing or walking a section or two.
I recently moved to central FL from my SoFL home just 3mi from the Markham Park trailhead. I've had the good fortune to ride NC, SC, GA, CO, UT, CA and HI. My technical skills are not expert level, but after riding for 20 years and BMX as a kid, I think I'm capable of cleaning Cloud Nine before too long. Thank you to the Flagler Area Biking guys for your excellent building skills and maintenance.

Mala Compra was double diamond trails are very challenging but overall the trail was great! Tried it after doing graham swamp trail. The loop wasn't marked really well, a bit confusing.

This trail was a mile from where we stayed so I was able to just ride to it so I rode it nearly everyday that week. It was a lot of fun and didn't get old! Some sections were very challenging adding to the fun!

Cloud 9 inner loop not for the faint of heart, double black diamond. Outside loop fast and fun.

Very cool ride after Graham Swamp. It starts out pretty flat with some switch backs. There are plenty of roots. Once you back into the trail it has several difficult obstacles.

Great trail. Well marked. Stay on the blue trail for a nice fairly easy ride. Take the cloud section if you want to test your skills. This is a very difficult area. But really fun! I could easily spend all day in this section! Highly recommended this trail. And with graham swamp only 15 mins away. Spend the weekend and ride both!