Spanish Lake

I was in St. Louis this weekend and had enough time to check out the trail for the first time. I was looking forward to a good ride after reading some of the reviews. Sadly, the much anticipated maintenance here has not yet begun, at least on the small section I rode. I should have been tipped off by my difficulty finding the trail in the first place. No park information talked about any trail except the short paved one near the lake at the entrance. When I did stumble onto a section it was severely overgrown, with numerous fallen trees across the tread. I bailed quickly and went on to greener pastures. Hopefully GORC or other local groups can restore this one before it is too late.

Long neglected, over grown and trash covered trail. This trail needs a lot of maintenance and is planned to start getting some love this fall or next spring to get this gem back to it's former glory.

We at the Gateway Off Road Cyclists (GORC) are in the planning stages of getting this trail system back to it's full glory. We have a new trail steward and are looking for a co-steward and will be preforming lots of maintenance to get the trail back opened up for full use. Look here from more updates.

Not being kept up. Went in January 2012 and every 200 feet the trail was blocked. Looked like it was pretty cool at one time.

Just attempted to ride this trail yesterday and it is pretty much completely unrideable. Everything is very overgrown and it has more downed trees than you can shake a stick at. The dirt jumps on the southern end are completely destroyed with trash. The parts I could ride seemed really awesome though. this would be a great course with some upkeep and trail signs and maps

I raced here a few times years ago and thought it was a decent course to race on. I raced here again this past summer and WOW what an improvement. Lots of newly discovered single-track that bobs and weaves through the woods. There’s also a cool wood ramp that goes up and over a big tree and a new wood bride that goes over a drainage ditch. I definitely think there is still room to grow at Spanish Lake but it is a fun place to ride none the less. I have since been back a few times to ride again and found some more trails that need to be cleared out and maybe added to the race next year. The problem now is that none of the trails/course is marked so it could make it difficult to find the right way without a map if you were new to the trails. I think that if the trails can be properly marked and maybe add some more single-track to replace some of the gravel roads, Spanish Lake Park could shape up to be even a better place to ride.

The Spanish Lake Park trails has improved big time. A lot of work was put in clearing old trails and improving some of the main trails for the Trailblazer Blitz race there last weekend. All of the riders that raced the new & improved course loved it. The trails themselves vary, there are super-tight single track trails along with some regular single track trails that run through the woods and by the lakes and have modest elevation with logs, roots and other obstacles that give you some decent challenges and are very tight and twisty in spots. There is basically one wide gravel maintenance road that circles the park that can be very fast and open at times with some of the trails off-shooting from it. There are a few new man-made bridges and ramps in the woods that give the trails a needed boost. It is a fun ride. There are about 4 miles of trails now. Are they the best trails in the STL area? No, but they are definitely worth checking out. There have been some discussions about maintaining the trails on a regular basis with adding additional trails and marking them. The future looks bright for Spanish Lake Park.

It was never really closed, more of a venue used for cyclocross/mtb races. Not much dirt, not much fun. But it still there