Motivation has been a big problem for me over the past 2 years, but this December I decided I would push myself; I committed to riding every single day of December. The result was great, I didn’t do any huge rides, but I managed to clock at least a few miles every single day. At the turn of the year I decided to renew my commitment and pledged to myself to pedal 900 miles in the first 90 days of 2014.
Fiona and I had a great ride at Rockville with my good friends Stripes and her better half. I’ve been doing a lot of short-ish local rides but not a ton of trail riding lately so getting out was a blast. Here are some great slides Stripes put together including some good pics she took and some mediocre ones I took.
If you’ve never ridden Rockville, it’s a great small trail system just outside of Vacaville, in easy distance for a lot of Central Valley or Bay Area riders. Rockville is a bit of a rats nest of intersecting and crisscrossing trails with a great mix of rocky technical trails and reasonably smooth/ beginner friendly trails.
Riders anxious to test their skills usually bee-line for the aptly named Rock Garden trail on the ridge just west of the lake. It’s a great technical challenge and ridable in both directions. For even more challenging trails, expert riders can head to the south-east corner of the park and ride Manzanita trail down to Lower Tilly trail where they can try their skills on a sphincter-clenching-steep volcanic slab ride.
Beginning and intermediate riders just looking for some low-key riding can enjoy the flatter trails around the lake, and some of the trails on the south-west side of the lake. Arch trail, Lower and Middle Mystic trails all offer plenty of great low key riding which nearly anyone can enjoy.
I usually park on Rockville road and take quarry trail in, there is a nominal $3/ rider fee for park use, but the kiosk takes cash or credit cards.
I wouldn’t call Rockville park a ‘destination trail’, but it’s a great little park for local riders or occasionally worth a 90 minute drive. If you live in the Bay area, or the Central Valley and haven’t ridden at Rockville, you should take some time to check it out.