Montana De Oro

Great place to ride on a hot day but be careful. I rode the Oats Peak trail. When you get close to the peak the temperature spikes in the summer. The beach temp was about 63 and it climbed to over 93 when I got close to the peak. Be prepared to be dusty when you are complete. The Oats peak ride is a little over 1,000 feet elevation change. I only got off one time. All of it is ride able. Make sure you grab a bell at the trail head to prevent accidents. Most of the trail has shrubs on either side so you can not see on coming traffic. The bell is a must. You can donate $17 and take the bell home. I will absolutely be doing this again. SO much fun. The climb is worth the work.

Perfect tacky trail conditions. Nice cool temps also. New trail from Islay Creek up to Hazards is very green and a little too vanilla. Not very challenging.

CCCMB does a great job maintaining the trail system here. Lots of great views. Not quite enough elevation for me though. Definitely worth riding if you are in the area.

You can get good maps of MdO and other trails in the area at cccmb.org. CCCMB does a lot of work to build and maintain these and other great trails around SLO County. I've moved away from the area and really miss it.

Rode here in June, it was warm but with an early start it was doable. Parked near the bluff Trail and rode up to Oats Peak, great singletrack climb and super fun descent. Then we went up to Hazard and went up and around East Boundary which was really fun as well and came down Isley Canyon. We did the bluff Trail next for a relaxING cruise for a total of 24 1/2 miles for the day. Great views it's really pretty out there but there is a lot of poison oak right off the trail on the inland side so watch where you step. I would ride here again in a heartbeat if I'm in the area.

Fun trail, nothing really to add on top of the already well thought-out posts, other than info is still spot on...

Hard to beat the coastal views here. Nice singletrack with some loose rock but pretty much hardpack unless you hit the Bloody Nose area, which is 99% sand. Starting from the Hazard Peak parking lot, grab a bike bell and start climbing. Most trail here is climb, climb, climb - descend back to the beginning without much in between. Nice, cause you get the climbing out of the way first!

Nothing too technical on the existing trails, but there are some tight, blind turns so be mindful on your way down - especially on the lower parts of the trail where the chaparral grows taller. The sounds of the bells only go so far! Trails are signed well, it would be difficult to get lost here. Climbs are sustained but on a relatively easy grade, you might get gain a 1000 feet of vert on one loop, more if you combine.

While you can join the trails to make a longer ride, AVOID the Hiedra Trail > Bloody Nose option. The trails are 100% sand for almost 3 miles back to the parking at Horsecamp Road. While some of it is downhill and fun for a few minutes, you WILL hike a bike through a lot of sand. I think these are primarily horse trails but are marked as multi use on the maps.

Its a great are for mellow rides with fun downhill sections you can make as fun and fast you like within reason of course! Can't beat the views and there are new trails opening up this summer going up Valencia Peak. These are MTB specific trails, so be sure to check them out.

Great singletrack combined with gorgeous views. Rode the Bluffs Trail-waste of time as far as riding is concerned but provides some spectacular up close views of the cliffs/ocean. Then rode Hazard Peak all the way to the top and then back down to East Boundary Tr. Great workout through steady climbs and then smooth flowy downhill on the return trip. Rode 12 miles but according to the map there's another 5 miles or more that I didn't have time fore. It appears that the trail network is designed to grow so this park should get better with time. The trails are pretty solid although sometimes you loose traction on the loose rock, sand, or dry dust. Rode an hour or so on Sunday and the trails were crowded with all types of users. Road Monday morning and the park was sparsely populated. Good times!

The climbs aren't really bad at all, the downhill sections are great fun, Hazard peak you can get a lot of speed down. Drainage runoffs offer lots of little jumps, barranca is a kick ass downhill if you don't mind loose rock. Weekdays are definitely the best time to go as the weekends is when a lot of riders are out as well as horse riders. Some trails like Heidri is torn up due to horses, and this last sunday volunteers cleaned up the trails.
All around trail, some technical, little drops, great views, definitely worth riding.

Rode this just before the end of the year, and with the dry weather, the trail was pretty solid. Started off with the ridge trail, to east boundary, barranca to Islay Creek Road. Only a handful of people were on it even though the weather was fantastic.

Overall, the trails were in good shape and were not too technical, except for Barranca which is mostly loos rock on the downhill section.

One of my favorite short downhill blasts on the Central Coast. The newley revised trail does not have the steep downhill sections anymore. They recut the trail, so now there are long sheer side mountain trails that if you fall would be very bad.

This along with the grade was the after work ride when I lived in SLO. The views and the awesome downhill makes the the ride up ridge trail so worth it. THe downhill is fast and dusty (watch for hikers and horses) tons of fun. There are a few drops and jumps on the downhill depending on how fast your are going. Often times I would take the big rig and do repeats of the downhill section. Not overly technical but a solid ride. If you want more out of your downhill excursion check out tower trail * Review edited 8/25/2009* Review edited 8/25/2009

every time i come here the trail is different. the first time it was a lot of hardpack, then it got really chewed up from the horses, and this last time it was still very loose in a lot of places making climbing very hard. the downhill on the ridge is awesome, this time it wasn't so chewed up and the turns were banked and very fun. there are drainage chanels everywhere to catch some good air on. the last time i went we took the east ridge trail starting on the north end, took that all the way to then end at the fire road and picked up barranca and climbed that back up. connected to the ridge trail and had fun on the downhill after another tough climb.

the horses really chew this place up.

I definitely recommend taking Ridge Trail. Once you get to the top of the hill there is a bench, take a breather, take in the view of the ocean, lower your seat and prepare yourself for about 10 minutes of pure downhill fun! You can really get up to speed on the first third of the downhill. Be careful on the next third because you will encounter a lot of loose gravel and big rocks and if you are going to bail this is probably where it's going to happen. You'll then hit a sandy section and it's pure fun from there with lots of jumps and lots of speed. Watch out for horses and hikers. The trail has gotten more popular over the years and I suggest going on a weekday if you can spare the time.