China Camp is a wonderful singletrack ride, especially if you're at a time when you're a little out of shape or if you have beginner riders with you. It's the best (and "only", really) beginner singletrack ride in the Bay Area, in my opinion. Any other beginner options are either more fire road than singletrack, or have at least a few punishing steep sections in the mix.

This route in China Camp is almost completely singletrack and requires almost no advanced climbing stamina or technical skills. While there are a number of technical spots along this ride that would pose difficulty to beginners (and be welcome fun for experienced riders), almost all of them are constrained to the first quarter of the ride, and then things get even easier.

One important note I'd make about China Camp is about the parking. It's very common for park users to park along the side of North San Pedro Road. The parking spot represented on the route and the suggested parking link on this page is just such a road-side parking option, too. Ordinarily, at parks that have paid parking lots, I make a conscious effort to park in the paid lot as my own little way of supporting the park, since I don't do much other volunteer work for these parks. I've parked at a road-side spot like this at China Camp until now (including this ride) because (a) I hadn't even noticed until recently that a paid option existed, because so many other people use road-side parking, and (b) because, even when I actively looked for a way of paying for parking during my last ride there, I couldn't see where the self-pay envelopes are located. (The booth at the entrance of Back Ranch Meadows campground parking lot, at the beginning of this ride, is usually unattended, at least during weekends.) It has now been clarified by a reader comment (that you'll see below this text) that the self-pay envelopes are found in a far corner of the parking area itself, near the restrooms. So, I hope you'll find it worthwhile to go the trouble of locating the payment envelopes and parking in the paid parking lot in order to support the park a little, as I also will from now on.

While, on most loops, I usually opt to ride in the direction where the climbs are longer and gentler, in China Camp, I prefer to ride in the direction where the climb is shorter and the descent is longer. This is because even the shorter climb is no challenge at all, and I'd rather keep the "work" short and the gradual and fun descent long, rather than working uphill (no matter how gently) for a longer while and shortening the fun of the descent.

This ride first climbs up the ridge part of the way, at a moderate but steady grade, and then slowly descends back to sea level, followed by a flat return meandering along the foot of the hillside. Other than a few short fire road sections here and there, it's all singletrack.

The ride also rewards you with one or two viewpoints where you can look to the north and the south, and the sea-level portion of the ride is frequently open to the northern coast of the park.

If you find yourself looking for a place to eat after a ride in China Camp, one of my favorites is a Puerto Rican restaurant named "Sol Food" in downtown San Rafael. They have multiple locations. Be prepared to wait in line, though; it's very popular. Another good casual option for a post-ride meal is the San Rafael location of Pizza Orgasmica. The atmosphere is fun, the pizzas are decent, they brew their own beer, and it's a large enough place that you shouldn't have trouble getting a table.